<p>Adding that, as strangers visiting LA incepth for the first time, our very favorite experience was the Griffith Observatory, a park with telescope and astronomy museum, in the hills just overlooking L.A. It was beautiful around sunset, allowed us to see Saturn’s rings clearly at twilight through a powerful telescope. The museum and planetarium stayed open well into evening. Outdoors were large-scale views of the sweep of L.A. residential and commercial development from horizon to horizon. (Do I sound like I come from the East? I do…). Until then I couldn’t grasp the enormous city.</p>
<p>Thanks again for all of the suggestions and information. The depth and breadth of knowledge of this community and your willingness to share it is always amazing to me. Wish I could meet up with you down there for a glass of wine, you all sound like nice and interesting souls!</p>
<p>The other cool thing about the Griffith Observatory is that you can hike from there to the Hollywood sign! It takes a few hours each way, though.</p>
<p>The colleges will be quiet in summer, but still worthwhile visiting to get at least a vibe of the area in which each college has its campus. And if you go to the Getty, it really is so close to UCLA that it’s worth a visit even though you won’t be applying there. I go up there at least once a month to visit, go to a concert, visit old professors, attend a conference, or more recently (like today) for physical therapy.</p>
<p>You can get to the Getty by driving Sepulveda, the alternate route for the 405. Like the others said, mid July, the whole freeway is being shut down for 53 or 54 hours, so Sepulveda will be a nightmare.</p>
<p>If you’re putting off the trip until August, and you like classic rock, I would highly recommend trying to get tickets to the August 19th performance at the Whisky A Go Go – Ray Manzarek & Robby Krieger (keyboardist and guitar player for the Doors) will be playing, along with Dave Brock as lead – Dave is the lead singer in the Doors’ local tribute band, Wild Child. Should make for an amazing concert.</p>
<p>Also, currently, at the relatively new Annenberg Space for Photography – a photography museum in Century City, is a great new exhibition on Beauty Culture (with the accent on “Cult”) in photography. See link below.</p>
Sorry for going off-post here -
UCLA77 - you gave me a mental image of a great comedy short of the college expeience over the years… </p>
<ul>
<li>Young students going to wild parties and doing the college hijinks, intimidated by the profs</li>
<li>Young grad student studiously doing grad school, no parties, lunch with profs</li>
<li>Young-ish post-grad returning to campus for concerts, speakers, etc.</li>
<li>Older post-grad now going back to campus to have the physical therapy and procedures done at the campus hospital</li>
<li>Deceased post-grad now seen in name only etched on a building or bench as they left a large donation to the campus in their will</li>
</ul>
<p>The Doors are always amazing. Well before they ever got their famous gig at the Whisky a GoGo, they first performed at UCLA’s Royce Hall, at one of the Student Film Exhibitions.</p>
<p>Holy criminy, the closures of the San Diego Freeway through LA’s westside are going to cover a 10-mile swath of freeway. The aforementioned Sepulveda Blvd. will be shut except for local traffic. The Getty pavilion will be closed because it’ll be inaccessible. </p>
<p>I got stuck trying to get on the 101 and had to take a huge detour a few weeks back - not sure why, but it looked like road maintenance (perhaps related to this project?) </p>
<p>To make it worse several exits were closed near the 101 entrance. It was a nightmare. Without GPS, I have no idea how I would have gotten to my destination, which was not familiar territory for me.</p>
<p>That area of the 405 has always been a bottleneck since it reduces in the number of lanes. I used to gear my UCLA visits to try to hit the less congested times of going through that squeeze area (on northbound 405 from around Jefferson to 10 or Santa Monica blvd). They’ve been working on that stretch for at least 5 years. It actually got somewhat better around a year or so ago but is still a bottleneck. I’m glad they’re finally widening it more but that’s definitely a weekend to avoid the area.</p>
<p>We used Priceline for our southern California college trip last year and got great deals in Santa Monica, Diamond Bar (for Pomona/CMC), as well as northern California. We stayed at the Radisson across the street from USC and appreciated being able to walk over to campus.</p>
<p>These are the hotels we ‘won’ on Priceline and Hotwire for our California college trip:
Doubletree Guest Suites Santa Monica for $99 (bidding on Priceline)
Holiday Inn Select Diamond Bar for $51 (bidding on Priceline, literally just passing through and sleeping there)</p>
<p>Westin Palo Alto for $139 (Hotwire)
Claremont Hotel Spa in Berkley for $71 + resort fee (bidding on Priceline)</p>