Not a traffic complaint thread, everybody already knows the freeways are bad. I mean the things you quietly stopped doing and never announced.
Mine is Niko's Red Tacos on Sepulveda. Best red tacos I have had and I used to make that drive from Atwater without thinking about it. I have been twice this year. Somewhere along the line the 10 stopped being worth a taco. Same with a friend down in Long Beach, we have known each other fifteen years and now we text instead, because neither of us wants to give up an afternoon to sit in it. Nothing dramatic happened, the map just quietly got smaller.
Gave up driving to Little Tokyo for Sushi Gen. Used to do that once a month. Now if it is not fifteen minutes from the Marina it does not happen, and I have made my peace with that.
Mine is Raffi's Place in Glendale. I used to book a table there every few weeks and it felt like a real treat, and now the drive over at six in the evening takes almost as long as the dinner does.
I have not given it up completely though, I just moved it to Sunday afternoons. Half the things I love are still in my life, they only live on a different day now.
Marshall Canyon with my dog used to be our whole Saturday, but it is an hour each way and I have not made it out there since spring. She has no idea what she is missing!!
I did the same math and came out the other side of it. I rode Metro daily for about two years and the thing it actually fixed was not the time, it was the dread. Forty minutes on a train where I can read beats twenty five minutes of white knuckling the 10.
So some of it came back. Not all of it, but the B Line put Langer's back on my list, and the number nineteen forgives a lot.
What I did lose is anything the train does not go anywhere near.
I gave up on driving to the Valley. It’s just not worth it. Traffic sucks both ways and it gets super hot during daytime. It’s not like the Valley is bad or has nothing to offer, it’s just too much of a hassle.
I gave up my dentist in Sherman Oaks for the very same reason. Perfectly fine dentist. Been going 10 years. Last time I sat on the 405 for 70 minutes Found someone on Figueroa now.
Hiking Runyon. Not even the parking. The idea of crossing the 101 just to walk uphill with 200 other people who also decided today was the day… just felt wrong. I bought a cheap treadmill and I hate myself a little less.
Sunday farmers market in Santa Monica. I used to romanticize it. Organic peaches, ocean air, $10 juice that tastes healthier than seaweed itself. Then I sat on the 10 for an hour to buy fruit I could’ve gotten at Trader Joe’s and missed my brunch.
), but his food is amazing!
