On Saturday Kim and I got up fairly early (around 5AM) trying to get onto the road to Los Angeles (and Hollywood) before any real traffic. Unfortunately for us that wasn’t early enough as we ran into some heavy traffic at 5:57 AM on Saturday morning.
We ended up in the heart of downtown Los Angeles… Exciting stuff really. I honestly would have preferred it if the GPS didn’t route us that way but whatever, we’re alive to talk about it! :)
There was some construction on many of the ramps on the highway we wanted to use so we were wandering in circles for a while until I found a viable detour that took us where we wanted to go in a round a bout fashion.
The first stop on the “Free Shit to do in LA” tour (hosted by yours truly and my Garmin GPS) was the world famous Hollywood sign. Using the Hollywood Sign website’s seeing the sign section along with Google Maps’ sat photos, I was able to nab the coordinates for the Dog Park which offers great views and some of the most interesting driving I have ever done in my life. Along the way to that location the GPS routed us past another spot on their list (a traffic light at the intersection of Franklin Ave and Gower where the signs that say “no access to the Hollywood sign” begin).
Kim and I spent a little bit of time snapping photos of the sign and enjoying the smoggy view of the city from the hillside. We marvelled at the houses and how cramped they were. I was seriously surprised that a) we didn’t hit anyone on the drive — most of the roads are 1 lane at best and even smaller with the douchebags parked *EVERYWHERE* except their driveways b) we didn’t get lost and c) that no mudslides removed these homes.
After the sign we headed back down the mountain and over to Hollywood Blvd for the Hollywood Walk of Fame. All these years I had grand visions of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I guess it’s probably because you think of Hollywood as being glitzy and ritzy and also because anytime you see it, someone famous is getting their star.
Well, I hate to break it to those of you that haven’t been there, but it fucking sucks. It’s dirty (afterall it’s in the sex store area of the ghetto) and it’s boring. Yeah, we saw a couple of names we knew but it really wasn’t worth continuing. Especially when I was weary of the passerbys even at 7:30 AM.
We ate breakfast, in the Hollywood Ghetto McDonalds, and moved on towards Rodeo Drive.
On the way to Rodeo Drive we were passing the nicer homes in the Beverely Hills area. I figured there had to be caches in the area there so we started traversing the streets. The homes weren’t anything to get excited about but they were nice none-the-less. Mostly they were just larger homes with real yards as opposed to overpriced shacks like the rest of LA.
Rodeo Drive is another location in Hollywood that I expected would be an *awesome* sight. Unfortunately, it too sucks, bad. Not only was it shorter than I expected (about a city block) but it was filled with “stores” that had very few items and the items that they did have were tacky, ugly, and pointless. It’s obvious to me that people only shop there to “be in” not to actually buy anything they really wear. I’m convinced that they all shop at Old Navy just like I do.
We did luck out, using the hiptop to suggest good parking, and ended up with our first hour free. It only took us about an hour to see everything so that rocked!
After Rodeo Drive we headed straight for the Santa Monica Pier. Usually when we go on vacation I end up doing a webcam cache because a) they are not real caches and Kim will do them w/o complaining and b) they usually take you somewhere cool that you can share with someone playing along at home and in this case Stephen hooked us up with the photo and I had my second California find. Woot.
We went over the bridge and onto the pier and I started taking photos. The beach was huge (much larger than the beaches are on Hilton Head Island) and with the pier/boardwalk, it reminded me a lot of the Jersey Shore (Wildwood) growing up.
There were some overpriced shops, restaurants, and some rides. We walked all the way down to the end, read the history of the pier, and watched people fish. I bought a t-shirt from a vendor for $10 (nice one too — far nicer than the ones in the brick and mortar stores which were stretched out, twice as much money, and weren’t nearly as nice) and we grabbed some food.
I had a huge double cheeseburger and Kim got some sort of shake and something else. I don’t remember. While she was eating I went off to find another cache nearby. I didn’t end up finding it because I was too concerned about the hypodermic needles in the shrubs (when I came back the next day to locate the cache I found a bum sleeping in the shrubs but the needle was gone).
After that we took off towards Venice/Muscle Beach. The parking in the immediate area of Muscle Beach was in the $12/day range. We couldn’t find any hourly parking near there so we drove closer to the Santa Monica side and parked for two hours there.
We headed out onto the beach and spent some time enjoying the ocean (which was fucking cold as shit), the beach, and the breeze. I ended up with a nice sunburn and was wiped out from the sun…
We drove back to the hotel, took a nap, and got ready for Manu and Padma’s wedding reception.
See all the pictures from today here (mobile) and here (camera).
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