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LA Coroner's Office, LA River, LA Casinos, Skeletons in the Closet, San Antonio Winery
 

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LOS ANGELES, CA Previous Page Next Page
   Other Information
The information presented on this page does not fall into any of the other categories within this article. As items on this page grow in length they may be moved to their own page within the entire Los Angeles article. Click on the links below for each section.
 
Casinos Crystal Cathedral Graffiti LA River
Miracle Mile Skeletons in the Closet Wine Tasting  

Casinos - There are no Indian Reservations within the city of Los Angeles so any casinos you may find do not have slot machines, rather their focus is on card games, blackjack, poker and bingo. We have visited the following two casinos.
 

Crystal Casino & Hotel is located off of the 91 freeway in Compton about 10 minutes from LAX and or downtown Long Beach. Address: 123 East Artesia Blvd. This casino can be very crowded on weekends especially for bingo where you may see several hundred people parked out on long tables playing this game. Visit: www.thecrystalcasino.com  
 
Commerce Casino is located right off of the 5 freeway near the Citadel Shopping Outlets. This is a huge casino, hotel and spa with a number of restaurants contained inside. Commerce Casino has many card tables, offers poker, bingo and a number of ongoing tournaments including Poker and Hold em'. Our friends owned some oil wells in the city of Commerce and our first visit to this casino came during a visit to these wells. Visit: www.commercecasino.com

The Crystal Cathedral is located off of the 22 freeway in the heart of Orange County at 12141 Lewis St. You can also easily see it driving by on the 5 freeway and it can also be accessed via the 5 freeway. This is not your usual "cathedral" as you can guess from its name. A tall shining spire greets you as you enter the parking lot (free parking). In the same grain as a drive in fast food restaurant the Crystal Cathedral offers drive in prayer, or as it is titled on a sign, the "In Car Worship Center". How many cathedrals have a box office. You can find one here, available to sell tickets to a wide variety of events including ministries, annual celebrations, seminars and conferences. The cathedral is also famous for its nationally televised "Hour of Power".

You can either take a self guided tour of the cathedral and grounds or reserve a free guided tour ahead of time. If you decide to explore on your own, allow at least 30-45 minutes to walk the grounds. Unique religious statues of significance are scattered around the property.

Click our thumbnail photos below and visit: www.crystalcathedral.org
 
       
The tall spire   Incredible carving   Marble statue outside   The Crystal Cathedral   Hand in statue
 
       
The inside of the Crystal Cathedral.   The center of the Crystal Cathedral.   Yes, they have a box office!   The "in car" worship center - parking lot.   A wonderful statue outside.

Graffiti - There is a never ending battle between law enforcement and those who "tag" various urban locations within Los Angeles including freeway overpasses, parks, bridges, along the LA River and any number of buildings. It is always interesting to see Graffiti tags high up on overpasses in locations that are extremely difficult to reach. Graffiti is a major problem within certain communities in the Los Angeles area.
 
  Los Angeles River - When you stand solitary on North Main Street next to the railroad tracks above the Los Angeles River all you feel is a deep sadness as you look down on a river that has been dramatically altered in a relatively short amount of time. You look down on a dirty river that now flows dark, a concrete river juxtaposed with brightly colored graffiti where those entrapped by the city, drugs, gangs and poverty territorially cry out with their markings. Electrical lines, bridges, rubble and old fences all decorate the banks of what was originally the lifeblood of Los Angeles. If you do not happen to be on North Main Street, any of a number of bridges in this area will afford one the same views. Close your eyes and think back 100 years to a time when this actually was a natural river, with trees and grass growing along its banks. Or, if your imagination has been corrupted

beyond hope by the scene that lies in front of you, simply Click Here to see a picture of the LA River taken in 1900. For more information visit the Friends of the Los Angeles River: www.folar.org or view this very informative film here: www.plasmatic-concepts.com/lariver/movie.html

Looking to take a tour of the LA River? Visit: www.deliriousla.net/lariver/tours.htm

Miracle Mile is a fancy very urban section along Wilshire Blvd. The main reason it received its name is because of its meteoric rise to fame from an area that used to be farming fields. Today there are many tall fancy buildings that line this part of Wilshire. Several museums are located here including the LA County Museum of Art, the famed La Brea Tarpits and the Petersen Automotive Museum. In addition the Screen Actor's Guild has its headquarters here as well as other business connected to the entertainment and film industry. As you drive Wilshire towards downtown next to and just past Miracle Mile, you can drive through a very nice old neighborhood and sometimes avoid some of the Wilshire traffic. This parallel road (West 8th Street) runs next to Wilshire for a few miles.
 
Skeletons in the Closet is located at the Los Angeles County Coroner's office at 1104 N. Mission Road east of downtown right next to the 5 freeway. Visitor parking is to the side of the main building - be sure to get a free visitors permit pass from the secretary located in the main building to put on your dash.

Skeletons in the Closet is a fairly hidden gift shop located behind room 208 in the main building. Only the small words "gift shop" are written on the smoky non see through small window. The small shop carries a variety of morbid type souvenirs ranging from the very popular floor mats that contain an outline of a body (these are crazily popular around Halloween), to clothing, mugs and much more! As they say at this shop, "we're dying for your business".
 

This is certainly not a gift shop your going to find in the tourist brochures - its well hidden away and you have to know about it to find it. Can't make it to the Coroner's office? They sell their products online as well and you can request their mail order catalogue. For more information visit: http://lacstores.co.la.ca.us Proceeds from sales benefit the Youthful Drunk Driver Visitation Program
 
  Wine Tasting - San Antonio Winery is located fairly close to the 5 freeway east of downtown at 737 Lamar Street. This is a historical winery founded in 1917 at a time when there were many wineries in and around Los Angeles. Today they are the only bonded winery within the city of Los Angeles. They have a healthy advertising budget and you may see their signs around parts of town including nearby Chinatown.

They make a wide variety of wines, all affordably priced. They own vineyards on California's central coast including around Paso Robles, Monterey and then also in Rutherford, Napa Valley. All of their wines are priced very affordably from just a few dollars to $50. As of our latest update, most of their wines are in the $7 to $20 range with a

production of wines to satisfy many different palates. They make a wide variety of sweet wines also. San Antonio Winery has been family (Riboli Family) owned since day 1. When we were there the original owners nephew, 87 year old Stefano who came to America from Italy in 1937, was helping with the tastings. He comes to work every day is known as "the boss" and is a great source of information about the local history of the area, anything related to wine - and he loves to meet and talk to people.

Besides their complimentary tastings, San Antonio winery also offers tours, food and wine classes, holds special wine festivals and runs the
Maddalena Restaurant on site, featuring cuisine from northern Italy.

For more information visit: www.sanantoniowinery.com or www.riboliwines.com
 
Heading up to No Cal to do some wine tasting in Napa?  
Dave has personally visited and tasted with over 600 commercial wine producers (wineries) in the Napa Valley. Click on the graphic above or visit: www.napawineproject.com

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