Echo Park Lotus Festival + Pups at the Park
I went to our first Lotus Festival in 2015, but I'd wanted to go sooner. Back in the day (2006 or so), when I was obsessed with Echo Park because of Elliott Smith but never went there, my friend Kathie took these gorgeous pictures of the Festival and I knew I had to go someday. Took 9 years, but I did!
This year, the Festival fell on the same day as Pups at the Park, and since Echo Park Lake is super close to Dodger Stadium, we decided to hit both.
It was apparently a bit late for lotuses (loti?) but it was still lovely.
The Festival celebrates the blooming of the gorgeous lotuses that have been in Echo Park Lake for decades. Kind of a crazy backstory on that, actually... the park/lake was closed for refurbishment a few years ago. It was in disrepair, the lotuses were all dead, and LA had (finally!) reached a moment where we decided that we weren't scared of hanging out in public anymore. So, officials fenced the park off, drained the lake (and the bodies), and went to work designing the New Echo Park Lake. Eventually, some dude called and said that he'd (illegally) clipped a lotus 8 years prior and would they like to buy it from him? His act of thievery means the lotuses could repopulate and we'd all get to enjoy them today. Thanks, guy!
The lotus bloom in the foreground, while facing the lake you see pedal boats and a view of downtown. Also in this shot is one of the Dragon Boats, which are raced during the festival.
The Festival is a really great community event with the usual festival trappings (booths, face painting, food), but it's spirit-lifting just to go to the lake and walk around, sit in the grass, or go on the pedal boats. Shortly after the reopening of the park in 2013, we took a deLab tour with the designers and architects who spearheaded the refurbishment and we've been going back ever since.
After maybe 90 minutes at EPL, we headed over to Dodger Stadium. It's gone through several names/iterations, but the event is now called Pups in the Park. Basically, you bring your dog to the game, there's a "Pup Parade" before where you walk on the field, and you're seated in the right field Pavilion, which has all-you-can-eat Dodger dogs. I don't think I even had 1, but Scooter definitely did!
Scooter was thrilled.
I'd be good going to, like, 1 Dodger game a year, but somehow it always ends up being more than that. Ah well. This game was on Saturday afternoon and they were showing Top Gun afterwards, so not only did we get to enjoy a fun afternoon (and Dodger win) with a bunch of dogs, we hung out for a while after the game and watched part of the film. It was a pretty fun day.
Sun- drenched family photo.
