"We're all ignorant, just about different stuff"

Will Rogers State Park in named after the cowboy entertainer who was one of the highest paid stars of the 20s and 30, and was famously quoted as saying he “never met a man he didn’t like” which is really odd considering he worked in show business. Did they not have publicists and agents in vaudeville?

The park is the land that he bought in the 1920s in what is now Pacific Palisades that became his ranch where he practiced ridin’ n’ ropin’ and uh, polo and golf before his untimely death in a plane crash. When his widow died in 1944, the ranch became a state park and the ranch house became a historic landmark. Well, historic by Southern California standards. The ranch house is interesting, though, if you like that kind of thing….

The park’s location overlooking the Pacific Ocean (including the beach below) makes it a very pleasant place to spend an afternoon, learn to ride a horse, or partake in a leisurely stroll. That is if you are not deterred by the somewhat extortionate parking fee - $7 no matter what time you arrive and not included in the state pass. The park also has wi-fi – I am undecided whether this is a good thing or not. The principle trail here is much less strenuous than Temescal, and almost as scenic. The 3 mile loop begins just east of the parking lot and polo grounds, past the Rogers home with a climb up the fire road. The walk takes you up the parameter of the ranch, up a gentle incline to the summit at Inspiration Point – another view that really delivers: to the West, the Pacific Ocean, to the East, the Oz-like towers of downtown LA, and the stars’ homes (or some other obscenely rich people) in the near vicinity. It’s kind of amazing how big this city really is – and yet here I sit in the middle of it feeling completely removed from the sprawling metropolis below.