10 Things To Do In LA When Your Flight Is Canceled Due To A State Of Emergency At Your Destination (Seattle)

It seems I have an extra day in LA because Seattle got pelted with snow and ice. Poor Seattle. It’s 70F here and I have 21 hours until my flight takes off (hopefully) so I’m dreaming up some things I can do with my extra time.

1. Stay In The Airport

Ha! Are you kidding me? Have you been to LAX? Every little area is kept separate from every other little area. They have about a thousand security check points and no connection between them. Or so it seems. I could stay in the terminal for 21 hours and stare at this.

That’s right, Starbucks. They have plenty of those. I have no fear of running out of pumpkin walnut bread or $3 bottles of water. By the way, I was making for that small exit sign. And credit to Alaska Airlines for getting me a seat on a different flight the next day before I made it out of the airport. Getting stuck in Seattle would not be so bad because it is a nice airport. But LAX? No thank you.

2. Exchange Some Money

I thought of doing this in the airport. After all, other countries’ money is so much cooler than the USA greenback. Check out some examples here.

3. Watch The Bicycle Cop Give Out Parking Tickets

I actually did this, which is why it makes it on the list.  I also got to watch him threaten someone who pulled up with no one else in the car, to the point of pulling out his pad and acting like he was writing.

4. Sit In Traffic

It’s an LA past-time and I would not want to miss out on this spectacle. Unless I have the chance to miss out on this spectacle.

5. Look For Mastodon Jaw Bones

While on a press trip last summer in Snowmass, Colorado I had the geekylicious experience of handling a 100,000 year old mastodon jaw bone within hours of it being unearthed nearby. It looked like this and was awesome (read more over at Vagabond3’s site) .

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw THIS sitting by the curb at LAX.

But alas, one kick of my boot confirmed it was NOT a mastodon jawbone accidently left in the street for me to discover. Just a chunk of rubber which hopefully did not just fall off of a plane. Sigh.

6. Get Sunburnt

Waiting for a ride away from the airport, the sun was hot. And beating. Beating hot. At least 75F in the sun. Hot enough to burn my sorry Seattle-white skin. I fear it.

7. Steal An Electric Vehicle

Believe me, I thought of it. And a ladder too? Hell yeah.

8. Stop By A Coffee Bean And Tea Leaf

Evidently this place is something of an institution down here. I also ate at In-N-Out Burger just to cover my bases.

9. Go To The Beach

Seriously. It’s California and it’s winter, which means you might want to wear a jacket, but you’ll still see plenty of people in shorts and flip flops. While Seattle freezes under a sheet of ice, the beach sounds like a great idea.

10. Shoot A Bitchin’ Time-lapse Film Of The Sun Setting

11. BONUS THINGS TO DO!

My friend Melanie of the fabled website Travels With Two has a whole passel of other ideas both in the LAX airport and nearby, if you still need ideas that don’t involve theft.

There you have it. Never be bored in LA during a flight cancelation ever again, if you print out this post and keep it with you (LAX has no free wifi, so kill some trees and print everything out that you want to read). There are at least 10 things to do in this city and I plan to do them all. Except the sunburnt one.