LA Trip, Day 1: In 'n Out Burger, NIKE offices, Ocean, Deep Dish

Adrienne and I arrived to the LAX airport at 9:30PM local time, which would have been 12:30AM in our time. What was the first thing we did? Went to In 'n Out Burger! We weren't even on LA grounds for more than 30 minutes before we already checked off one of the items on our "To Do" list. What a great way to start the week...

Once we recovered from a long flight and In 'n Out Burger, the next morning we visited the NIKE regional LA offices. The space was tucked away within a refurbished brick building, but the inside definitely had the feel of NIKE. The offices are the headquarters for anything and everything "Los Angeles" and the the majority of the West Coast, from events with Kobe to retail accounts with LA's finest sneaker boutiques.

My favorite part, other than the sneak peek of the 2011 product and a giant bag of free NIKE gear, was their inspiration wall. Among the many on the wall, the following two quotes were my favorite:


After touring the LA offices, we drove to the new NIKE store on Santa Monica's famous 3rd Street Promenade. The store was having a P-Rod signing event, but before checking out the event, we had to walk a couple blocks west to get a view of the Pacific Ocean. So here it is...

The new NIKE store was simply incredible both on the outside and inside. I walked throughout the entire store amazed by the attention to details within the store layout, as well as the clothing itself. The old, wooden bleachers was my favorite part of the entire store. The highlight of the store was the Jordan wall, which featured all of his signature shoes beginning with the very first sneaker, the Jordan 1.

This mural was featured at the head of the stairs. You can't really see the details in this picture, but it was made up of sports equipment like shin pads and helmets, and of course, NIKE shoes. It wasn't until I stepped back that I could see that the equipment was arranged in a way to create the silhouette of NIKE co-founder, Bill Bowerman. I must say, it did take me a few minutes to realize that it was an outline of his face.

The day was capped off with Joe and Tot treating us to their favorite local pizza spot, BJ's. Joe and I split the Bacon Cheeseburger deep dish pizza while Tot and Adrienne split the Sweet Pig deep dish pie. Yum, yum, yummy!