Travel Town Griffith Park

If you've got a Thomas the Tank Engine fan on your hands, or anyone really with a train fixation, you might want to plan to spend a few hours (and a few dollars) at Travel Town in Griffith Park. 

Located near the Toluca Lake end of the park on the Valley side, Travel Town houses many an old steam engine, caboose and passenger cars underneath a mock train station. 

In addition the engine cars that you can climb into (please read the signs to know which ones are safe) there are passenger cars that have been converted to party trains to rent for birthday parties. There is a small museum with early trains and train like transportation, plus a model train the kids (big and small) all gather around to stare at. 

There's also a miniature train ($2.50 per rider) that you can ride around the small park in. Pack a lunch for one of the picnic tables but come early as this is a prime birthday spot so those tables get claimed fast. There are vending machines filled with cold drinks and a small (very small) hotdog cart with chips and ice cream, but that's it as far as on-site food goes. There's a gift shop as well, where you can drop a car payment on all sorts of Thomas merchandise. 

While my son seems to have moved on from his Thomas love to his dinosaur phase, he still loves trains, as evidenced by our trip on a real train this past August and by the smile on his face as we all sang out "All Aboard!" for two quick laps in the Melody Ranch Special all decked out for Memorial Day.

Cheers...er All Aboard! 

J.

 

LA Locavore: Lindy and Grundy

For Memorial Day 2012 we got burgers from our go-to butcher Marconda's at Farmer's Market and a new one we just read about, Lindy & Grundy. 

While we've been fans of Marconda's for awhile now, especially their organic pork chops that are just so unbelievable tender, we were intrigued by a write up we saw in Men's Journal about Lindy & Grundy.

The shop is small but tasty and reminds us a bit of the food halls at Harrods in London. We picked up two burgers that had bacon mixed in for around $12. 

We steamed up our new favorite side dish, Sangria artichokes to go with them. 

Both burgers were great. Lindy & Grundy's bacon burger was best eaten plain, just bun and burger, it had too much favor to crowd out with condiments. The gourmet burger from Marconda's was tender with a good strong burger flavor that went well with the dutch bacon, avocado and triple cream French (er Canadian) brie we piled on it. 

 

Cheers!

J.

Fishing at Trout Dale in Malibu

We took the kids fishing at Trout Dale in Malibu. If you are a Gwen Stefani or Gavin Rossdale fan, that may sound familiar as that's where they took their two boys not too long ago. Our kids have been begging us to take them fishing so this was a nice find. 

Located off Kanan Rd, the stocked ponds are a nice drive from L.A. The weather was perfect, not too hot not too cold. It was sunny out, but there was plenty of shade at Trout Dale. For an entrance fee of $ 7.00 per person, you get some bate (it's canned corn) and a bamboo fishing pole. We had no luck with the bamboo poles. After an hour or so we switched to regular casting poles that we borrowed from another family and ended up catching two fish. You must pay for each fish you catch and the fee is based on the length of the fish. 

If you head out to Trout Dale, be sure and hit up the road side fruit stand on the way back to the 101. Fresh from the farm, it made for a great snack for everyone on the drive back and was reasonable priced. 

(Am I the only one that has to sing this song when driving Kanan Rd?)


Cheers!
J.