A Trip to Los Angeles

 Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Last week was Lisa’s spring break. While she used most of her time off catching up on projects that have been ignored, she really wanted to take a couple days for us. She had recently learned that the Los Angeles temple has apartments that patrons of the temple can rent for rather cheap. For $60 we rented a very nice apartment.

On April 23rd we headed up to the LA Temple. Our room was very nice, it had a queen-sized bed, a nice little kitchen with a fridge, stove and microwave. A little table and a balcony. We stopped at a Costco on our way to LA and picked up a meat loaf, and after our session we put it in the oven and cooked it for dinner.

The next morning, we did two sealing sessions and then checked out the temple grounds. From what we could tell, the local missionaries stayed in these apartments as well plus the mission president and the temple president have houses on the property.
There is a nice Family History library and a fascinating visitors center with the history of the temple and its construction. In front of the visitors center they have several little statues like this one.

We then headed to the world’s shortest incorporated railroad. Angels Flight has more passengers per mile than any railroad in the world. All it does is take you up what would normally be a very annoying hill. 

They have built a beautiful shopping center at the top of the hill with an outdoor stage and at the bottom of the hill are a bunch of office buildings. I’m guessing that office workers will take the train up the hill for lunch. They charge a dollar, so if you’re climbing that hill every day, it might be worth it.

After riding the railroad up the hill and back down we then went to check out a much bigger train. Well, we didn’t actually see any trains, but we went to the Los Angeles Central Station.

Neither me or Lisa have ever been to Central Station but we have heard it is beautiful. Kira and Mandy would take the train to this station every summer and Mandy’s uncle would come and pick them up. They would stay with them for a week or so every summer.

For some reason I was expecting some big gothic type of building like I am used to in Europe, but I should have known better. This is California and this station is more like a Hacienda or a Spanish villa.

Except I swear this bottom picture is Gringotts Bank.

After checking out Central Station, we headed to Phillipe’s for lunch. Phillipe’s is where we ate when Kira and Brandons families were here at Christmas time. They have a very good French Dip sandwich.

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Cats only meow at humans! While kittens meow to communicate with their mother, they stop meowing to other cats as they grow older. Instead, they reserve their vocalizations for their human companions.

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