Awesome Day Twenty-Three: A Day Date in DTLA

This week in LA has been summer in full swing.  Sunny, hot, with cloudless skies, these are the kinds of days where you want to wear as little as possible, and preferably be either poolside with a margarita or at the beach sneaking ice cold beers out of a cooler when beach patrol isn't looking.

Would if I could.

But Awesome Day Twenty-Three was scheduled to be cut un-Awesomely short by work.  So Cesar and I improvised with a quick (but Awesome) jaunt around Downtown Los Angeles--not exactly a place to cool off, but a cool place to go nonetheless.

First stop was the flower district, home to the LA Flower Mart.  The largest flower market in the country, this place is practically heaven to me.  It smells ah-MAZE-ing, and the flowers are all wholesale prices (aka super cheap).  This is where all the flower shops around LA buy their flowers earrrrrly in the morning; when the public is allowed in later in the day (we were there at 1 p.m.), the pickings are a little more limited, but you wouldn't even notice if no one told you.  I like it because I can buy a whole bunch of flowers, and accompanying vases, for practically nothing.  That kinda stuff makes my day.

Next stop was kinda the real reason we went to downtown: Ice cream.  It's not quite the same as a pool or the beach, but real, homemade ice cream is the next best thing on a hot summer day--especially when it's bicycle churned and organic.  Yep, bicycle churned.  A new place in DTLA just opened serving up small batch homemade ice cream, powered by bicycles.  They even make their own waffle cones.  This place is totally Awesome, and their ice cream is reaaaallllly good.

You can even sign up to be a peddler for them, to help make the ice cream and get free ice cream in return.  (Of course we both signed up--I'm going to pretend it counts as a workout.)

Flowers and ice cream: The way to my heart.