The Park to Playa Trail: Stellar Views, Art, and a Perfect Place to Get Fit

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Los Angeles is awash in arts and culture, fine dining, and sunny skies – the latter makes it all the better to enjoy some time outdoors. And the wide range of spots to experience nature close to home may surprise you no matter how long you’ve lived in SoCal.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

One of the best ways to experience the outdoors is along the Park to Playa Trail. This 13-mile regional trail connects a vast network of trails, parks, and open spaces for hiking, biking, dog walking – you name it. While some of sections of the trail have been around for decades, the entire trail wasn’t completed until 2020. It now makes an ideal destination for iconic views along with great exercise.

Credit: Genie Davis

The Park to Playa Trail stretches from city to ocean. It starts with the Stocker Corridor, where you can make your way through greenspace and neighborhoods before entering the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area,  a 400-acre park known for its stunning city views of LA.

After you cross the La Cienega Pedestrian Bridge, spend a peaceful moment at at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook. Next up: Culver City Park, rife with native plants and wildlife and a set of steep railroad tie stairs that take you down to ground level and back should you want to indulge in some particularly vigorous exercise. Staying on the trail, the Ballona Creek Bike Path is your next stop; from there, you can head straight to Playa del Rey to take in those Pacific blue waves and welcoming ocean breeze.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Kim Abeles Citizen Seeds, photo credit Ken Marchiono

On the way, you can enjoy sculptural art along with those views. Kim Abeles created seven beautiful, immersive sculptures on the Park to Playa Trail route. Her ecologically rich artworks first appear along the Stocker Corridor and Kenneth Hahn Park starting from the east, with the final piece located near the Stoneview Overlook to the west. The sculptures celebrate the flora of the trail, representing the seed pods of trees located along it. Created from concrete, terrazo, and metal, the lovely, highly tactile works reveal maps of locations, viewpoints and activities on the trail revealed in the interior of the pods.

Photo credit: Genie Davis

Besides the sweeping views of city skyline and sea and the delightfully textural sculptures by Abeles, the Park to Playa Trail offers numerous opportunities for hiking, cycling, running and just exploring. The trail provides the perfect urban fitness journey, too, with the long but pleasure-filled path a terrific starting point to lose weight naturally.  After all, movement is a big part of wellness and weight loss, and even by walking just a mile or so,  the trail is a pretty wonderful way to benefit your health.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Of course, the health benefits of walking the trail are more than physical. Despite its easily accessible proximity to the city, the trail provides plenty of areas to escape the tumult of urban life and just relax. Both exercise and time spent in nature can improve overall well-being, and combining the two can definitely increase the advantages.  Brain function is boosted by physical activities outdoors, as well as by the spiritual health boost of nature.

All in all, the Park to Playa Trail is an excellent trail for anyone who loves the outdoors, is looking out for their health, or simply seeking a little respite from urban life.  And best of all, you don’t even have to leave town to find it. That said, if you’re looking for a quick escape with a mountain vibe, Big Bear Lake is just two hours away.

Boney Island Exudes – and Exhumes – Spooky Charm

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Skeletons tell your fortune…clever video card tricks invite you to play…optical illusions of disappearing blackbirds and mysterious snake-like rope tricks fascinate, while charming, yes charming displays of the recently departed depict fishing trips and pirate lore, cowboy life, and strange gardens.

Such is the world of Boney Island, returning after a 3-year hiatus due to Covid and relocation. Now happily positioned outdoors near the Exposition Park Rose Garden on the Natural History Museum grounds, this enchanting Halloween world is immersive, interactive, and alight with eerie illumination now through October 31.

We walked through the museum’s garden pathways at dusk and into a world that includes skeleton dinosaurs, carnival barkers, and even carnivorous plants. Both witty, amusing, and properly spooky, the attraction was originally created by Rick Polizzi, producer of The Simpsons, for his family. It was designed as a riff on the Coney Island amusement park, and over the course of 20 years, expanded from a front yard exhibit to a large-scale attraction in Griffith Park. And now, it’s found what appears to be its rightful bones – or rather, home at NHM.

The museum’s nature gardens are a great setting, allowing visitors to wind their way through various themed areas. The carnival barker/Coney Island-themed skeletal attractions are the first portion of Boney Island visitors will enjoy, and it would be just about impossible to walk through it without laughing delightedly at the illusions and tricks offered here. In a small clearing, a compact stage offers a lively information from museum staff about fiendish-looking fossils and creatures from the distant past, as well as magic shows.

Attendees will stroll among the skeleton horses and cowboys, pirates and their buried treasures in Deadwood Forest, view a skeleton orchestra in performance and the somewhat carnivorous appearing plants in Hauntington Gardens, and watch skeletal Teradactyls fishing for boney fish among the other prehistoric creatures in Prime Evil pass.

There’s also a Haunted Halloween Light Trail, and at the far end of the attraction, a large stage featuring a Haunted Mansion water and light show with musical amusements ranging from the classical to the Adams Family theme song conducted by a delightfully snarky skeleton host. And don’t forget your camera! Set pieces such as a Dias de la Muertes skull, massive pumpkins, and a tilted quarter moon are also on hand for photo ops that are perfect for the whole family.

In fact, the entire event is not only family-friendly, its adult-friendly, too. Kids will love the tricks and amusements, adults will revel in the old-time flavor, smart artisanry, and lively quips that abound.

Additionally, there are pop-up demonstrations conducted by the Natural History Museum’s Live Animals team, and a rotating selection of local food trucks and food vendors as well as the museum’s café, the Neighborhood Grill from Post & Beam, as well as both Boney Island and NHM-branded merchandise and light up toys for take-home fun.

This unique and super fun Halloween spooktacular is ticketed at $25 per person; $20 for NHM members. The event runs Thursday–Sunday, and on October 30 and 31st. Entry times are at 6 and 8 p.m.; doors open at 6 and guests are invited to stay until closing. Allow two hours to enjoy all the tricks and treats.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

High Octane, High Altitude: Adventure Parks in Sky Forest and Big Bear, California

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When you’re looking for some thrills, family fun, and high powered amusement, look higher – ascend from Interstate 10 up Highway 18 to Skyforest and then Big Bear Lake.

That’s right, it’s not all about skiing, snowboarding, and summer boating – it’s about wildly unique zip lines and coasters, adventures on outdoor climbing walls, archery, go karts and pedal cars.

If you’re wondering where to find these thrills, read on.

SkyPark at Santa’s Village

Located in Skyforest,  SkyPark at Santa’s Village takes an iconic attraction (the original Santa’s Village) and makes it new again – and packed with thrills.

Perhaps the most thrilling is the Adventure Zipline. Soaring 30 feet above the floor of the forest, and bringing riders excitingly – but safely – close to tree tops, riders are harnessed in to fly over the park, landing via another locked-in zipline to ground level again.  Our rider loved it, and felt what he described as “total delight” while skimming over the wooded landscape.

It’s a much tamer but equally charming ride through the forest at ground level on the Northwoods Express, a modernized version of a ride that kids and adults both loved at the original Santa’s Village. Electric powered and manned by the friendliest conductor around, the train takes guests on a leisurely ride through the meadowlands.

But back to those thrills: I’d never experienced archery before a visit to Princess Evergreen ‘s Archery Range. After a quick but smart lesson from one of the park’s Adventure Team members, guests retreat with a bow and set of arrows to individual outdoor booths to take aim at targets. While I wasn’t very good at reaching a bulls eye, it was a lot of fun tor try.  In close proximity to the archery range was the NorthWoods Sharpshooter Gallery, where again after a brief but knowledeable lesson, I took aim at a target or two and proved to msyelf I was better with my safety glasses and a BB than with a bow and arrow.  Both adventures are available for kids age 9 and above on their own, or ages 3-8 if accompanied by an adult at the shooting gallery, age 5 and up at the archery range.

Kids 12 and up are welcome to test out their throwing skills at King Celwyn’s Ax Challenge, where a small, light ax can be aimed at a target. While I mostly whacked into the wall below it, I was impressed with the safe caged throwing areas and my own ability to wield the ax.

All three of these attractions are a part of the Royal Games area located at the top of the park, near the zip line.

Any guest able to pedal and don the provided safety helmet is welcome to embark upon Arrow’s Adventure in a pedal car that zips on a lightly hilly route through an ice cave and over a wooden bridge. The leg pumping action boosted my adrenaline, as did a climb in the Magic Tree Bouldering Room.

It was time to take a delightfully serene break in the Chapel of the Little Shepherd, a charming, restored location originally built in 1955. With stained glass windows and quiet benches for contemplation, the diminuitive spot is also avilable for weddings.

SkyPark’s location is well known for it’s bike park and beautifully wooded trails which take riders on mountain bikes (available to rent, or bring your own) beneath pines on well-marked trails. Young riders can enjoy pump tracks; the trails are carefully groomed every day.

And while older kids and adults alike took the trails, little kids were also literally diggin’ the child-size Moutain Movers dirt excavators as well as frolicking over the Discovery Playscape playground.

When we visited, a Renaissance Fair was taking place at the park, with costumed vendors and a variety of arts, crafts, and clothing. The park frequently offers these kinds of “bonus” experiences, such as summer concerts, or the opportunity to experience fly fishing on the property.

Coming soon to Santa’s neck of the woods: the updated return of a classic aerial ride, the Bumble Bee.  Unlike the old motorized attraction, SkyPark has repurposed the monorail track to transport a bicycle pedal car allowing guests to travel a suspended 1,000-foot curving course from above.

And, if you visit as the SoCal winter season approaches, you’ll find more classics in Santa’s Village, whose candy-cane and gingerbread house structures offer food and beverages as well as a Santa’s Exploratorium workshop for kids all year ’round. Come the holidays, guests will experience live North Pole entertainment, and of course, a visit with Santa.  Holiday lights also sparkle twice nightly in Santa’s Village from mid-November through January 7th.

Summing up: SkyPark at Santa’s Village is terrific, experiential update of an historic location (yes, they kept the candy cane at the entrance.) The adventures are oriented toward nature and physical action that just about everyone in the family can enjoy in a natural setting.  According to owners Bill and Michelle Johnson, their reimagining of the park – which originally opened in 1955 -includes both the holiday seasonal magic and these spring-summer-early fall adventures from ziplining to mountain biking to an Outdoor Education and Enviornmental Education program.  Hours and dates vary by season, with day passes, three-day passes, and three levels of year-round passes available starting at $149. Day passes are $69 (ages 13+) and $59 (children ages 4-12/seniors.)

Alpine Slide at Magic Mountain

Alpine Slide Park, located at Big Bear’s Magic Mountain Recreation Area, is another classic, having celebrated its 40th year this July. Over the course of the park’s 40 years of mountain fun, multiple attractions were added according to Alpine Slide rep Lisa Orabuena, including a water slide in the summer and snow tubing in the winter,  the latter offering a “magic carpet”-like function that takes riders to the top of the tubing hill with no hiking.

The park provides Southern California’s only “authentic bobsled” experience in the eponymous Alpine Slide. A scenic chairlift ride begins the adventure, taking riders to the top for a view of Big Bear Lake, where they’re seated in their own, individually controlled sleds. The two quarter-mile long cement tracks feature both high banked turns and straightaways.  Because riders can control their own speed – with their own individual control handle braking – the fun is suitable for all ages. A five-ride pass is $40; individual rides are $9.

The park also offers its own zip line experience – a unique rocketing adventure called the Soaring Eagle. The ride is a two person, seated zip – which by no means makes it tame (the ride is for those 42″ or taller and is $12 per experience). Riders are mechanically pulled very rapidly backwards up some 100 vertical feet and 500 feet in length to reach the launch tower, from which they are then catapulted forward to reach the base platform at a windy 28 miles per hour.  Our rider loved the “total surprise” of the backwards thrust and the pulsing push forward again.
For those of us more attuned to ground level fun, the Go-Karts offer a delightfully long spin, a zooming mini-race car attraction featuring 5.5-horsepower Honda-motored racers.  The vroom-vroom excitement can be packaged along with my favorite adventure of all – mini-golf.

The 18 hole course includes several risky water traps, an appropriate (for the location) bear statue hazard, and many amusingly challenging curves and turns.  Admission for both is $22, but guests can also enjoy both attractions singly.

But the biggest and most unusual attraction of all is the Mineshaft Coaster.  Like the Alpine Slide, the experience is rider- controlled as to speed on the descent, but it is still a fast and furiously fun ride at any pace. The newest park attraction propels you past mountain greenery heading up the incline, and then you’re off on a descent that includes hairpin turns, tunnels and even a 360-degree corkscrew on your way down. The mountain coaster is the first and only one of its kind in the Golden State. So exciting is the ride – which can reach 30 m.p.h. as a top speed – that guests’ cars are equipped with video cameras to film riders’ reactions to the hurtling fun, providing a memory available for purchase after the screams and laughs reach the boarding station again.  Adults can ride for $20, and kids, with some height restrictions, for $10.

Alpine Slide at Magic Mountain also offers a snack bar with best sellers like ice cream, chicken fingers, and cheeseburgers. There are also a bevy of arcade games indoors for guests to decompress on after the thrills and winter chills or summer splashes of the great outdoors.

Summing up: There’s nothing quite like Alpine Slide at Magic Mountain. With two rider-controlled thrill rides, a sunny mountain setting, and the pure adrenaline rush of what must be the fastest moving zipline in the U.S., this amusement venue offers plenty of family fun that can be enjoyed for an entire day, or one ride at a time, any time.

Dank Donuts

In need of sustenance before or after the thrills? We discovered Dank Donuts, where delicious, airy vegan and/or gluten-free donuts are on hand for breakfast along with the more traditional variety of sweet doughy treats. There are maple bars, giant cinnamon buns, and cronuts, too. However, it’s not just the thrills and mountain air that makes these treats taste possibly superior to every other donut you’ve ever tasted – it is literally the altitude, according to owners. At close to 7000-feet high, Big Bear’s thinner air makes Dank’s donuts fluffier. They’re also hand cut, and come in a dazzling variety from sprinkles to glazed to chocolate to filled. There’s even a selection of doggie donuts for your best four-legged friend.

But it’s not all about the donuts and pastries. Breakfast and lunch sandwiches are served all day, and they are hearty, ample, and packed with both flavor and fresh ingredients. We sampled two different choices from the lunch menu: the Herbivore, my choice, was a juicy mix of hummus and avocado spread along with the vibrant punch of sundried tomatoes, marinated artichokes, cucumber, lettuces and microgreens on wheatberry bread. My partner enjoyed the spicy Wild Turkey, which offered chipotle dressing along with the tender turkey, capicola, and spicy Jack cheese on a Hoagie roll with mayo and salad fixings.

Dank Donuts offers shaded tables, a pink and aqua color scheme, and fast to-go service. It’s a great first stop before heading out to the thrills of Alpine Slide at Magic Mountain and the wild adventures of SkyPark at Santa’s Village.

We stayed at the delightful Sessions Retreat and Hotel, a completely revamped and reimagined resort located in Big Bear Lake, with fire pits, cool shared spaces, and funky but elegant design in a variety of rooms.

Think of the decor and charm as a reasonably priced luxury retreat combined with the aesthetic of the Meow Wolf art amusement collective. Don’t stay anywhere else.

  • Genie Davis, photos by Genie Davis

 

 

Julien Nitzberg and Puppeteer Robin Walsh Go Wild Creating For the Love of a Glove

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For the Love of a Glove, a wacky, weird, irreverent satire, is writer/director Julien Nitzberg’s alternative-reality tale about the once “King of Pop,” and the way in which an alien named Thrihl-Lha is contained in a sparkly glove and trying to overtake all of humanity.

Nitzberg is joined in this wildly comic adventure by globally renowned puppeteer Robin Walsh, and the talented actors who operate her puppets and star in the show. The puppets are life-sized and lush, and the show uses them well along its completely irreverent, zany, yet pointed path as it examines everything about Michael Jackson including his skin whitening, his sexuality, abuse accusations, and his religion – all in a defiantly ribald, non-p.c. way.

Far from an authorized biography, the production is an inventive cult-hit that features 20 puppets that are motion-filled, queer positive and drag-friendly works of art.  The puppets are just one part of a talented live cast including lead Eric B. Anthony.

From suggesting a relationship with Donny Osmond was the key to Jackson’s life to a cautionary tale about an aborted romance with Brooke Shields, the wild and crazy humor is just the means to an end: unveiling and dealing with issues ranging from racism and religious hypocrisy to abuse and cultural appropriation.

The inspiration for the musical began twenty years ago, Nitzberg relates. That was when he was “asked to write a Michael Jackson biopic for a cable channel. The production team was trying to figure out how to deal with all the controversy surrounding him. They had no idea how to deal with the allegations of child abuse and so many other controversial things. I had an idea that we could say his glittery glove was an alien who forced him to do all these bad things, causing trouble to ruin his reputation.”

Needless to say, the production execs didn’t buy this approach. “They laughed really hard and said it was the funniest pitch ever, but could I do a normal version?” Nitzberg recalls. “But there was no way personally that I could write a convincing story about Jackson without dealing with these areas of his life and the only way I could make sense of them was through this idea. So, cut to years later, and this idea came back to me as honestly the funniest ever, and I created the musical.”

Making a funny, highly political and satiric musical came naturally for Nitzberg, having written and directed a similarly themed piece, The Beastly Bombing, that played successfully in Los Angeles for over a year.

In For the Love of a Glove, the writer/director explains that there were some subjects that he absolutely wanted to deal with in the production. “One was cultural appropriation, another was racism, and another was being raised in a fundamental Christian Religion. While this is all pretty heavy stuff, you can deal with issues in a lighthearted way without people feeling like they are being lectured. They can learn and feel like they are having fun.”

Dealing with a story about aliens who look like gloves “naturally led to puppets,” Nitzberg says. “Not to mention in the first act, we needed to cover the Jackson Five years, and we certainly were not going to cast five kids in a show that’s honestly pretty filthy. So, it made sense to use puppets to represent the kids.”

He adds “Teaming up with the amazing Robin Walsh was phenomenal. She is a genius, internationally known puppet designer.”  Working together, it took close to five months working on different puppet prototypes to find what worked best for the production.

According to Nitzberg, “Something most people don’t know is that working with pupets can be dangerous. In Broadway shows like The Lion King, people get injured because the ppets are so large and heavy. We wanted to design puppets that are comfortable to wear and lighter, which is tough with life-size puppets.”

Describing the rewards of and challenges inherent in the production, Nitzberg says “One of the most rewarding things about working on this project is our cast. They are so funny and so great, and bring so much richness to the show every night. We are always having audience members tell us that their stomachs hurt from laughing so much. The cast gets standing ovations every time.”

While he calls the entire production experience “super fun,” there have been challenges. “When you add puppets, everything is a challenge. Most of our actors didn’t have previous experience working with puppets, so Robin did a two week puppet camp to explain and practice how to work the puppets and the psychology of puppets, the background of this art form, how they fit into theater history and all of that. Having written and directed a musical before, I knew it took a long time to rehearse and plan, but puppets very much expand that.”

The show features eleven actors and twenty puppets, with each puppet exhibition its own character and persona.  “They take on a life of their own and start to freak you out,” Nitzberg laughs.

Describing the show itself, he notes that “A lot of people assume its going to be like an SNL sketch, making fun of Jackson, but it’s actually about how a great artist goes astray. One of the biggest parts of it is exploring how being raised as a Jehovah’s Witness with their super restrictive sexuality affected him adversely. We try to understand and explain how becoming the most famous crotch-grabber in the history of the world comes out of that background. For us, the answer is that the glove made him.”

The show opened ran briefly in 2020, was shuttered by the pandemic, relaunched this February, and has had its run extended four times, including for the next two weeks.

For the Love of a Glove runs Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. June 23/24, and June 30/July 1st at the Carl Sagan-Ann Druyan Theater at the Center For Inquiry West (CFI), at 2535 W. Temple Street, Los Angeles, 90026. A Pride Month Price Drop special offers general admission seating in these final weeks for $30, and front row bean bag seats for $80.

Go see this almost indescribable, insanely incandescent show before it dances off into the future.  It’s a real “Thriller.”

  • Genie Davis, photos provided by the produciton