California Part I – Los Angeles & Hollywood
It all started when my son started watching YouTube videos of a kid named Evan. EvanTubeHD was my son’s first favorite YouTube channel. Evan did a lot of unboxing and LEGO build videos but one video in particular caught my son’s attention: Evan’s tour of Legoland California. From the moment Dylan saw that video, he wanted to visit. That was about 4-5 years ago and Dylan is about to turn 11 in a few days. This summer, I finally had a chance to take him, and the rest of the family on a trip to California which included a visit to Legoland.
Given that this was the first time the rest of the family was going to see California, I made the conscious decision to have us fly into LA and spend a couple of days there, then make our way down to San Diego where we’d spend the bulk of our time. On July 5th, we were set to fly to Toronto, spend the night there, then fly directly to LA the following morning getting in around 11am. On Thursday afternoon, we set out for the airport.
After getting through security, finding a comfortable place to sit, we soon found our flight delayed, and delayed, and then finally cancelled. We got bumped to the 5am flight the next morning. Disappointed, we all headed back home, slept, got up nice and early, and headed back to the airport. This time, we got boarded onto the plane and started to take off, but then the plane came to a very quick halt and returned to the terminal. There was some kind of mechanical issue and it was going to be delayed by several hours. After speaking to the Air Canada agent, she put us in a cab to drive to Halifax, and got us on a flight from there to Toronto and then on to LA. We arrived in LA around suppertime having lost the bulk of that day to travel. We hadn’t made any reservations or major plans for that day but we did lose an entire afternoon of visiting. Thankfully, we had made it to California and settled in for the night.
Since we were only going to be in LA for a couple of days, I opted for a hotel near the airport. We didn’t really need anything central to the city since we were doing beaches and theme parks and other typical tourist stuff anyway. You can’t see much of anything in LA without a car anyway so it really didn’t matter where we stayed. Since we had lost the better part of the previous day, we decided to make Saturday a mixture of a bunch of typical LA stuff. Our first stop was a drive down to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive.
Now, having kids with us, the whole idea of what Beverly Hills is all about is kind of lost on them. So for us, we parked the car near a little park and let the kids climb the trees while we took some photos of the area. We got a couple of nice shots of the kids, as well as the wife and I, in front of a Beverly Hills sign at the center of the park. I didn’t bother taking us for much of a walk down the streets of Rodeo and the surrounding area given that it was 35 degrees out and walking anywhere was going to be hot. We soon found ourselves yearning for the air conditioning in the car and headed off to our next destination: the Hollywood sign.
Having been there several times, I knew that a drive along Mulholland Hwy would give us some really nice shots of the sign but I knew of an even better spot. While in LA for business, I did a bit of geocaching in the city and found one that claimed to have the best view of the Hollywood sign. GCQC55
. If you drive along that road and head towards the residential neighborhood, you’ll find a trailhead for the Innsdale Trail. There’s a small little opening between two homes where you can walk right onto the trail and find the Hollywood sign right there behind you. It’s completely free of tourists with no one else around and makes for some great photos without all of the crowds. You can find the actual spot at these GPS coordinates: N 34° 07.773 W 118° 19.363. Now beware, there’s not much of a place to park so if you do go, park on the side of the road, take your photos, and go. We weren’t there long but when we came out there was already a police car driving around asking people to move their cars.
Headed back down the hill and stopped at the more popular spot for photos. It’s only about 5 minutes from where we were, and the views are nice as well but a whole lot more crowded. The kids played in a small playground while we snapped a few more photos before heading on to our next destination: Hollywood Blvd.
With only a couple of days in LA, I wanted to try and expose the wife and kids to as much of the typical LA stuff as possible. For anyone coming to LA, Hollywood Blvd is a big part of that. We found a spot to park the car and started to wander. The first thing I pointed out was the infamous walk of fame. Again, it didn’t have much meaning to the kids, but for my wife, it was pretty cool. We wandered up and down the streets of the boulevard, checking the shops out and soaking in everything that Hollywood had to offer. We eventually made our way to the TCL Chinese Theatre where my son Dylan got a kick out of the Star Wars footprints in the cement. By the time we had finished there, it was now pushing towards early afternoon and the heat was really starting to get to us.
Dylan had really wanted to see the Ripley’s museum, and my wife always likes to check out the wax museums so we bought a combo ticket that got us Ripley’s, Guinness World Records museum, and the Hollywood Wax Museum.
We tackled the wax museum first. I’ve done a few of these over the years and it’s never really been my thing. I also knew that this was one of those lesser quality museums simply by the way the place looked on the outside. Wandering through the halls, some of the figures were really well done. Conan the Barbarian, Johnny Cash, the Men in Black, Jennifer Lawrence and a handful of others stood out to me as being better than I had expected. There was however a few of the figures that were less than stellar. The Katy Perry one was nice for my daughter as she is a fan but it wasn’t the best version of her I’ve seen. They did however have a really cool “mirror” room filled with figures and music blasting which made a great time for the kids.
Since myson had asked several times if we could go do Ripley’s, we finally made that our next stop. I’d read years ago that Ripley’s was one of those places that is really designed to take your money and not really give you much for it. In this case, I would have to disagree, especially for kids. Both of my kids had a blast checking out all of the various novelty and unusual items the museum had to offer. There were several Star Wars, Terminator, Hulk, African Statues, and other cool stuff that I was surprised by and for which my kids thoroughly enjoyed. The same could be said for the Guinness museum as well. It’s not for everyone but if you are a fan of unusual trivia and interesting things from all parts of the world, these two spots were worth the combo ticket.
The last part of our day came when we took a drive down to the Santa Monica Pier. This famous spot has been seen on countless TV shows and movies and was a spot I knew the kids would enjoy. If anything, it would give them a chance to enjoy the beach and experience the Pacific ocean.
We took a little bit of time to explore the pier itself and some of the attractions before settling it on going down to the beach. It was getting near sunset and the kids were getting really excited about going into the water. We grabbed our swim stuff from the car, headed down to the beach and then my kids discovered what real waves are.
Both Dylan and Megan have been going to the beach back home since before they could walk. They’ve been around water their whole life and have spent countless hours jumping waves down at Parlee Beach and many other areas closer to home. But this was not the same as the beach back home. The moment Dylan spotted the large waves crashing against the beach, he meade a B-line for them. He jumped, and crashed, and jumped and crashed and for what I am sure was a few hours, he didn’t ever want to stop playing in those big waves. These were real waves. Waves that people can surf on and waves that go over your head.
Both me and Tamara took turns with both kids going out and crashing in and out of each wave as it crested against the beach. I had never seen my son as happy as he was playing in those waves. You could just tell this was where he wanted to be. For the rest of our trip, everytime we had the chance to go to a beach, he was jumping into the waves.
Night came rolling around and we packed up and headed back to the hotel, but not before sitting in the parking lot for an hour. It took more than 75 minutes for us to get from the parking lot to the exit for the beach due to the congestion of cars there. When we finally did get out, we headed off to an In-and-Out Burger closer to our hotel where we again spent almost an hour in line trying to get food. I was reminded by both this and the parking lot incident about why I hate driving in large cities. Traffic is killer.
We finally got back to the hotel and found some time to unwind. Before we knew it, we were all asleep and waiting for the next day’s adventure. Tomorrow we would spend the day hanging out at Universal Studios.
Traveler’s Tip: As mentioned above, use those GPS coordinates to find a great spot to take photos of the Hollywood sign. I’d also recommend a visit to Manhattan Beach if you get a chance.
Notable Geocaches: GCQC55