197 courts and two years later, I have visited every public tennis court in Los Angeles.
One of the main things I learned from the quest is that Long Beach is in LA County! Originally, I was just gonna do the city of Los Angeles, but how can you leave out Long Beach — or Santa Monica, or Pasadena?
True story: I was playing tennis nine months after completing the quest, when a new tennis friend asked me, “What about Palmdale?”
“Palmdale’s not in LA County,” I confidently asserted. Confident, yes; correct, no. Palmdale certainly is in LA County and I have not played any courts in Palmdale, so I guess I have to scale back my claim to City of Los Angeles plus a ton of other courts in the Southland.
The intention was always inclusion, not exclusion — and also, not perfection. I always figured there would be some courts I inadvertently missed along the way. If you want to play tennis on public courts in Palmdale, I say go for it — especially if you’re open to playing with people you meet along the way.