Walking L.A. #35, USC and Exposition Park: Higher Learning, 3 miles.

Barbara and I like hiking college campuses—they're well-kept, architecturally impressive, historically interesting, and, on Sunday mornings, serene. The USC campus didn't disappoint. We started at the Alumni House, the oldest university building in SoCal, built in 1880, the year USC opened with a faculty of 10 for 53 students ($15/term—the approx cost of a chicken sandwich, chips, and drink on campus today). USC's first valedictorian was Minnie Miltimore. Yep, a woman. Love that. We circled campus to Heritage Hall, home of USC's sports trophies, then cut through quads surrounded by statuesque Romanesque Revival buildings and peppered with fountains and benches. After a check-in inside the tiny Chapel of Silence, we left campus for Exposition Park across the street. Each building in ExpoPark is a day trip of its own, from the Aerospace Museum to the CA African-American Museum to the 7-acre Rose Garden (created in 1927 on the former site of a classy brothel.) Facing the rose garden, the 1913 landmark beauty that houses the Natural History Museum's 4 billion years of artifacts. A quick tour through the CA Science Center, home of the Space Shuttle Endeavor (blast it, we needed tix so we passed), then across Coliseum Dr to the real reason we chose this hike. Barbara and I couldn't GO to the Super Bowl in Minny today, but we could hike to the site of the FIRST Super Bowl in 1967: the majestic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Since its opening in 1923, the Coliseum has hosted Olympiads (1932, 1984, and upcoming 2028); a World Series (1959); and Super Bowl I and Super Bowl VII. A National Historic Landmark, she's a classic. May today's game be as much fun as our hike.