*Warning: Picture Heavy Post!*
--- And please, take note, if you are bored reading about our trip, that's ok. I also blog about this, so much later on, WE can look back and remember all the things we saw and did too. So feel free to skim through. :) ------
On Sunday, bright and early, we packed up in our little rental car and drove to Los Angeles. I say bright and early, because both the girls woke up early. I dressed them in their normal shorts/capris and short sleeve shirts and when we walked outside Brooke said it was freezing! Ha! I'm sorry, child...72 is not freezing. Only when you are used to 110 degree temps with 98% humidity. ;)
Anyway, this was one of the days where we didn't really have a 'plan'. I knew certain things I wanted to see, but there wasn't any method to the madness. So we set off using my little phone as our navigation. For some reason, repeatedly on this trip, Brad could not get used to listening to her tell him where to go. Maybe I should've changed it to a male voice. ;P So on SEVERAL occasions, we would miss our exit or miss our turn. Then we'd have to wait for her (the navigation...later to be discovered named "Sara") to re-calculate and in the process of all this... on this particular day, we ended up in downtown LA, which is not what we were going for.
We did see this beautiful church on our unplanned route though...
And we ended up near the Hemp Convention (only in California right?)
And Brad noticed this breakfast place that had a line just to get in that wrapped around the block. He wanted to eat there because we knew the food must've been good? But, uh...no thanks. We weren't braving that line.
Anyway, we finally made it to one of first destinations. Hollywood Blvd. I was kind of shocked at the surroundings. I've never been before and I expected LA to be this beautiful city and Hollywood to be filled with luxurious homes, etc. It was not. At all. LA is very dirty. Like, trash EVERYWHERE dirty. Graffiti (big graffiti too) everywhere. It's unfortunate because Southern California by nature is very pretty. Pretty landscaping that is all natural. Pretty palm trees, pretty green grass, flowers just randomly blooming everywhere. But when you have a load of trash somebody just dumped right next to all of this, it's very distracting. I like to think that in Texas we take better care of our land and would appreciate the natural beauty better. But whatever.
Anyway, then in the midst of all the filth, was the one strip known as Hollywood Blvd. The strip where the walk of fame is with all the stars.
Its kind of cool. But I just kept thinking, I can't believe the stars came through the nastiness of this town to get here?!
So, Brad was excited to get his picture taken next to Bruce Lee's star.
Outside of the Grauman Chinese Theater are dozens of handprints and dedications from famous people. That was kind of neat to see.
Here is Brooke with her hands in Marilyn Monroe's handprints.
And here are the girls with their handprints in some of the characters from Harry Potter...
And here's Brooke standing in Donald Duck's feet...
We also came across this Shrek, that Brooke was scared of, so I made Brad take a picture with him...
I thought it was neat to see the Kodak Theatre..
And this Hard Rock Cafe was awesome! (more on that later)...
We came across an old fashioned Mickey Mouse Soda Fountain store. With Disney on their minds, the girls were super excited to take a picture with the 'fake' Mickey Mouse.
And then we noticed that Disneyland had its own star! (again they were beyond excited about the upcoming visit to Disneyland)
I should stop to mention there are some interesting people you see on Hollywood Blvd. Like this guy, dressed as Batman, carrying on a normal conversation with a fellow tourist...
Or Elvis here...
Or several other people I was not quick enough to take a picture of. It was...um, ...interesting.
From there, with nothing else around, and our tummies grumbling, we decided to just go ahead and eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. I'm usually not a big fan. I like to shop there, but the food is overpriced for what you get. But, after this visit... I stand corrected. This was easily, THE best meal we had on our whole trip. Everyone's food was delicious. It was cooked to perfection. The dining area was much more elegant than a typical HRC. The service was wonderful, almost too good! And there was entertainment too! The area where the cooks were had an open bar in front of them, from which they delivered food. So their area was totally viewable from the tables. Every time a new song would come on, everyone there (waitstaff and cooks) would sing and dance along. It was quite enjoyable experience all the way around.
From there, we loaded back in the car and while Brenna napped,....
...we drove to find a good place to take a picture of the Hollywood sign, one of my things I had to have a picture of. I was content with taking a picture from the side of the road. But Brad insisted we could get closer. So we drove a little bit up the mountain. I'm telling him, 'really...I'm ok with taking one from back there.' But he insists we'll get closer. Pretty soon we are on a private road driving up the side of the mountain, probably about to get arrested. And....we've lost sight of the sign. Ugh. Finally after 25 minutes of me about to panic, he gives up and we find our way back down to the main strip. Whew! Back to navigation Sara.
But in the end, and to his credit, we did see some pretty amazing houses. I'm pretty sure they were famous people's houses. Several had security guards standing out front (yea, I was trying to not make eye contact then). Or maybe that was the massive Church of Scientology I'm remembering. Whatever. I was too preoccupied with our safety to take any pictures. ;P
So, from there, we drove to Beverly Hills, 90210. Heehee...
Again, the drive there was filled with yuck-ness (I'm sure that's not a word, but it applies here). But once in the streets of Beverly Hills, it was beautiful! The drive then looked like this...
My only requirement there, while in Beverly Hills was to see and take a picture on Rodeo Drive, so we did.
next to Tiffany's on Rodeo Dr...
We also all ate cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory there. Forget dinner! We were on vacation! :)
And before leaving, Brooke took this picture of us with my big camera! She does pretty good, huh?
Then a random stranger saw her struggling holding that big ol' thing and offered to take this family picture...
From there, we started to head the direction of Anaheim, but veered off and decided to go see Santa Monica Pier.
I had been told it was a must-see attraction. We rounded the hill and saw this...
And I instantly told Brad, "I am NOT going down there!....Did you see all those people?!" But, once again, he insisted, let's just drive down and see.. So we did. And we ended up getting out and walking around a bit, and it wasn't too bad. I'm glad we did. He gets credit for this stop. :)
There were also interesting people on Santa Monica Pier. Like this fairy, near the front of the entrance, sucking her thumb (in the picture she's not, but trust me, she was sucking her thumb, ew.) ...
Or Catwoman....
Or one of the Incredibles (forgive me for not knowing the name of the particular character)...
And Elmo and Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street.
All of which, Brenna thought was pretty fun! She was waving to several of them as if they were part of some parade. Haha!
We also saw this poor guy, who was doing a dancing puppet show for tips. :(
We got a couple more pictures from the end of the pier, where Brenna swears she was seeing dolphins (and who am I to argue?)...
And in the above pictures, Brooke is "freezing" again. I told her to act normal and look warm for 2 seconds while we took a picture. LOL
We went shopping at Bubba Gump Store and Restaurant (Brad regrets not eating there).
We even found one little booth that had something we could get Brenna's name on! (that never happens, so we had to get it)...
And Brooke tried to talk us into letting her ride all the rides that we saw (think..carnival type rides).
We negotiated and compromised on eating a carnival-type dinner there of hot dogs and letting her have cotton candy afterwards.
Then, we loaded back up and headed back to Anaheim and our condo for the night. We saw a lot that day and it was a lot of fun, very interesting...but fun! This was the one day of our trip that Brad was not looking forward to he later confessed, but even he enjoyed it!
(view of downtown LA)...
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