A Walk To The Ballpark - Dodger Stadium, July 4

It's not an annual tradition, but if I'm hankering to celebrate on the 4th of July, nearby Dodger Stadium is always near the top of my list.

This year with the team owners hiking parking up to a rip-off $15, Susan and I decided we would leave the driving to everyone else and walk the two miles to the Dodgers front door from ours.

The heat wave helped us decide to make a bar walk of it we had planned first-time visits to Silver Lake Lounge, The Gold Room, Barragan's and The Short Stop. The first one was closed and so was Barragan's, but the other two were open for business with $1.50 Pabst specials -- and The Short Stop even had a free barbecue going on!

Once we climbed up to the game we were treated to the Star Spangled Banner by the well-voced Tiana Bryson (or Briana Tyson... not sure) and a flyover by a massive C-17 military transport craft. The game itself against the Atlanta Braves didn't have a lot of fireworks and though the Dodgers had the tying run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth he struck out and the Braves took the win, 5-2.

A few minutes later the light show began and it was marvelous (a welcome improvement over the 2005 edition, which had to be shut down because of a couple small fires that resulted from it).

Afterward we walked home through the illegal fireworks war zone that is both sides of Sunset Boulevard through Echo Park, but it was otherwise uneventful.

86 photos | 239 views

items are from 04 Jul 2007.