Saturday, October 2, 2010
Day 3: A little more Hollywood, San Bernardino, Arrive in Redlands
It seemed to take longer to get ready this morning. We're a little tired. Finally headed out the door, originally headed back to Hollywood. However, since it was only about 8:15 and nothing gets going down there until 10, we decided to head to "The Valley" and check out the house where Mom's family was living when she was born. We made sure to take back roads and the drive wasn't bad... just long (over 20 miles). And we couldn't find anywhere to eat breakfast! The day before there had been a McDonald's on every corner - now we couldn't even find one of them ANYWHERE!! Finally, after driving for over an hour and beginning to starve, I managed to get Samantha to find us a McDonald's only slightly off our route.
We found the house and it is still there!! Took several pictures and luckily no one came out shooting. Mom had been a little fidgety about the drive, but once we got there and saw the house, I believe she was glad we came.
Then we headed toward Hollywood - another 10 miles. It was 10:30 before we finally made it down there. The area in front of the Chinese Theatre looked very busy so we decided we would wait until Tuesday to try to finish our stops there. Instead, I found a parking space on the street near Hollywood and Vine, and we walked the sidewalks looking for Humphrey Bogart's star. And we found it!!! Picture to follow. We walked up and down Vine and also found Lauren Bacall's star. We also happened upon a small, impromptu concert/promo in front of Capital Records for the first band John Lennon was in which is performing at the Egyptian Theatre, which we toured yesterday!
Alas, I still didn't get to shop for any Hollywood souvenirs or postcards since we needed to get on the road! Maybe on Tuesday.
We started driving out to San Bernardino, which was 58 miles from where we were in Hollywood. It was all freeway, but going out that way wasn't bad. I was so sleepy that when we stopped for something to drink (they have 7 Elevens out here!), I got a Coke and added a Red Bull to it!! That drink yesterday at Hard Rock has started something. My combo was also good and it gave me the kick I needed to keep going.
The drive is really beautiful with mountains in the distance. I snapped several pictures from the car while driving on a freeway doing at least 65MPH. I need either a chauffeur or a photographer along on these trips, cause my mom is neither!
In San Bernardino, our first stop was at San Bernardino Valley College where Mom got her AA degree in Liberal Arts in 1962. She didn't recognize anything. It has expanded and changed so. She did order a copy of her transcript and we walked around the campus and took a few pictures.
Then we went to an address where my mother's grandparents had lived from about 1938-1943. We found it... but unfortunately there was only part of the foundation and a hole in the ground left. I took pictures anyway. Not a terrible loss, since that was before Mom's time.
Next we went to the location of the original McDonald's... the first McDonald's. Yes, no matter what the Kroc family has said all these years, the original McDonald's, owned by the McDonalds, was in San Bernardino, California. The original is no longer a restaurant; it is a museum of sorts about McDonald's in 1/2 the building and a museum of Route 66 in the other half. It is located in a rough neighborhood, and I had read online that what was inside wasn't that great, thus Mom didn't even get out of the car. I hopped out and took some pictures and we took off out of there!
Last on the list for San Bernardino was a visit to my great-grandparents' grave. The office there had sent me a map of their location before we left home. We went ahead and stopped by the office to thank the gentleman who helped me. He was very nice, and offered if we had any trouble locating the graves, to call him and he would come out and help us. Well, I am good with directions and can read a map, but cemetery maps and directions are an entirely different animal!! Mom and I found the correct section, but then we walked and walked and could not locate the graves. It looked like a storm was coming in so I had to give in and call the guy from the office to help us. It took him a few minutes, but he did find them. Thank goodness!
Then it was off to our final stop of the day, Redlands. The town where Mom went to high school and where her beloved grandmother lived. The town I have heard about my entire life. And to be honest, I liked it a whole lot better than San Bernardino. It kind of reminds me of Peachtree City, GA (near Atlanta). All the buildings are built in the same style, using the same materials. Upper class. And then... the heavens parted and the angels sang... when I found a Chick-fil-A!!! I had to come 70 miles out of LA, but there it was. There will be Chicken Minis in my morning tomorrow!!
As we were headed to our motel in Redlands, we realized that we had never had lunch. What the? Liz - miss a meal?!! I say if that is what the Red Bull will do for me, I will drink it all day every day! LOL We checked into our hotel... which is another story... and got ready for the get reacquainted social for the Redlands High School Class of 1960 to be held at the American Legion. We got all prettied up... both of us in new outfits... and got some dinner at Macaroni Grill. The only damper is that now they are listing the calorie content of each dish. I had no idea and didn't want to know how many calories are in the Penne Rustica. I ordered it anyway. And savored every bite. And passed on dessert.
The social was held outside in the back "yard" area of the American Legion. There was a half door opening where you could walk up and order something to drink from the bartender working inside. Come to find out there were over 600 people in Mom's graduating class so she didn't recognize a whole lot of people there. (I thought it was a great turnout until I found out how many were in the class!) Luckily, one of her best friends from high school, Freddie, came. That really helped put Mom at ease. I really liked Freddie and her husband, Art. He was a hoot. I'm not sure he hears very well nor remembers much, but he was a good sport! I took some pictures of Mom with the few people she knew. And she was ready to go by 7:15. Fine by me.
Got into my jammies IMMEDIATELY and have been on this laptop ever since. I am really tired and ready to go to bed. But I will share some pictures first.
Oh and the story of checking into our room. Well, of course there was a line at the counter and of course there was only one person working. We finally got checked in and when the girl gave us the keys to our room, she tells me that we might want to wait a few minutes before we go up to our room since the lady that just asked for a key had already checked out and the room had already been cleaned, but she had left her belongings in the room and was just then picking them up. O....K.... Mom and I go up to the room, and it was not in pristine condition. The ironing board was sitting in the kitchen area, there was trash (paper) all over the desk, and they had used the bathroom! There were dirty towels hanging on the back of the door and over the shower curtain bar!!! I saw the housekeeper in the hallway and told her. She was sooo aggravated. It just made extra work for her. She asked if we wanted to change rooms, but once she shared that it would only take her about 10 minutes to clean the bathroom and straighten up everything, we decided to stay put. And she was in and out in no time... very nice. The girl at the front desk is super nice. We chatted with her for quite awhile when we got back from the social. It is different from LA out here.
People at the tourist areas were really nice in LA. The only rude people we have encountered are drivers. People drive really aggressively there. They will not hesitate to honk at you, u-turn, cut you off, or even run you down. They have little to no patience with newbies to the area. And yet, we have not seen any traffic accidents. So I guess their driving is controlled aggressiveness. There is a lot of traffic, but it keeps moving.
OK, I'm rambling now so I'm off to bed.
We found the house and it is still there!! Took several pictures and luckily no one came out shooting. Mom had been a little fidgety about the drive, but once we got there and saw the house, I believe she was glad we came.
Then we headed toward Hollywood - another 10 miles. It was 10:30 before we finally made it down there. The area in front of the Chinese Theatre looked very busy so we decided we would wait until Tuesday to try to finish our stops there. Instead, I found a parking space on the street near Hollywood and Vine, and we walked the sidewalks looking for Humphrey Bogart's star. And we found it!!! Picture to follow. We walked up and down Vine and also found Lauren Bacall's star. We also happened upon a small, impromptu concert/promo in front of Capital Records for the first band John Lennon was in which is performing at the Egyptian Theatre, which we toured yesterday!
Alas, I still didn't get to shop for any Hollywood souvenirs or postcards since we needed to get on the road! Maybe on Tuesday.
We started driving out to San Bernardino, which was 58 miles from where we were in Hollywood. It was all freeway, but going out that way wasn't bad. I was so sleepy that when we stopped for something to drink (they have 7 Elevens out here!), I got a Coke and added a Red Bull to it!! That drink yesterday at Hard Rock has started something. My combo was also good and it gave me the kick I needed to keep going.
The drive is really beautiful with mountains in the distance. I snapped several pictures from the car while driving on a freeway doing at least 65MPH. I need either a chauffeur or a photographer along on these trips, cause my mom is neither!
In San Bernardino, our first stop was at San Bernardino Valley College where Mom got her AA degree in Liberal Arts in 1962. She didn't recognize anything. It has expanded and changed so. She did order a copy of her transcript and we walked around the campus and took a few pictures.
Then we went to an address where my mother's grandparents had lived from about 1938-1943. We found it... but unfortunately there was only part of the foundation and a hole in the ground left. I took pictures anyway. Not a terrible loss, since that was before Mom's time.
Next we went to the location of the original McDonald's... the first McDonald's. Yes, no matter what the Kroc family has said all these years, the original McDonald's, owned by the McDonalds, was in San Bernardino, California. The original is no longer a restaurant; it is a museum of sorts about McDonald's in 1/2 the building and a museum of Route 66 in the other half. It is located in a rough neighborhood, and I had read online that what was inside wasn't that great, thus Mom didn't even get out of the car. I hopped out and took some pictures and we took off out of there!
Last on the list for San Bernardino was a visit to my great-grandparents' grave. The office there had sent me a map of their location before we left home. We went ahead and stopped by the office to thank the gentleman who helped me. He was very nice, and offered if we had any trouble locating the graves, to call him and he would come out and help us. Well, I am good with directions and can read a map, but cemetery maps and directions are an entirely different animal!! Mom and I found the correct section, but then we walked and walked and could not locate the graves. It looked like a storm was coming in so I had to give in and call the guy from the office to help us. It took him a few minutes, but he did find them. Thank goodness!
Then it was off to our final stop of the day, Redlands. The town where Mom went to high school and where her beloved grandmother lived. The town I have heard about my entire life. And to be honest, I liked it a whole lot better than San Bernardino. It kind of reminds me of Peachtree City, GA (near Atlanta). All the buildings are built in the same style, using the same materials. Upper class. And then... the heavens parted and the angels sang... when I found a Chick-fil-A!!! I had to come 70 miles out of LA, but there it was. There will be Chicken Minis in my morning tomorrow!!
As we were headed to our motel in Redlands, we realized that we had never had lunch. What the? Liz - miss a meal?!! I say if that is what the Red Bull will do for me, I will drink it all day every day! LOL We checked into our hotel... which is another story... and got ready for the get reacquainted social for the Redlands High School Class of 1960 to be held at the American Legion. We got all prettied up... both of us in new outfits... and got some dinner at Macaroni Grill. The only damper is that now they are listing the calorie content of each dish. I had no idea and didn't want to know how many calories are in the Penne Rustica. I ordered it anyway. And savored every bite. And passed on dessert.
The social was held outside in the back "yard" area of the American Legion. There was a half door opening where you could walk up and order something to drink from the bartender working inside. Come to find out there were over 600 people in Mom's graduating class so she didn't recognize a whole lot of people there. (I thought it was a great turnout until I found out how many were in the class!) Luckily, one of her best friends from high school, Freddie, came. That really helped put Mom at ease. I really liked Freddie and her husband, Art. He was a hoot. I'm not sure he hears very well nor remembers much, but he was a good sport! I took some pictures of Mom with the few people she knew. And she was ready to go by 7:15. Fine by me.
Got into my jammies IMMEDIATELY and have been on this laptop ever since. I am really tired and ready to go to bed. But I will share some pictures first.
Oh and the story of checking into our room. Well, of course there was a line at the counter and of course there was only one person working. We finally got checked in and when the girl gave us the keys to our room, she tells me that we might want to wait a few minutes before we go up to our room since the lady that just asked for a key had already checked out and the room had already been cleaned, but she had left her belongings in the room and was just then picking them up. O....K.... Mom and I go up to the room, and it was not in pristine condition. The ironing board was sitting in the kitchen area, there was trash (paper) all over the desk, and they had used the bathroom! There were dirty towels hanging on the back of the door and over the shower curtain bar!!! I saw the housekeeper in the hallway and told her. She was sooo aggravated. It just made extra work for her. She asked if we wanted to change rooms, but once she shared that it would only take her about 10 minutes to clean the bathroom and straighten up everything, we decided to stay put. And she was in and out in no time... very nice. The girl at the front desk is super nice. We chatted with her for quite awhile when we got back from the social. It is different from LA out here.
People at the tourist areas were really nice in LA. The only rude people we have encountered are drivers. People drive really aggressively there. They will not hesitate to honk at you, u-turn, cut you off, or even run you down. They have little to no patience with newbies to the area. And yet, we have not seen any traffic accidents. So I guess their driving is controlled aggressiveness. There is a lot of traffic, but it keeps moving.
OK, I'm rambling now so I'm off to bed.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Day 2: California Trip - Hollywood
Mom and I were both wide awake at 5:30 AM. Besides the fact that I never sleep well the first night in a motel, my body is also still on Georgia time. And in Georgia, it was 8:30. So it was time to get up! LOL So there were no worries about getting a late start. After grabbing breakfast at the McDonald's next to the motel, we headed toward Hollywood.
I set Samantha on "Shorter Distance" so she would avoid the freeways, and the drive was fine. No big traffic pileups - there may be a lot of cars, but they keep moving. Cell phone use is illegal while driving, and I can see that makes a BIG difference. We found the parking garage at Hollywood and Highland and other than a van trying to run over me (Mom thinks they filmed "Speed" in that parking garage!), we had no problems. We found our way outside onto Hollywood Blvd and found stars on the Walk of Fame immediately. They are up and down both sides of Hollywood Blvd. I took pictures of so many such as: Bill Cosby, Jamie Lee Curtis, Vivien Leigh, Tony Curtis (with a candle and wreath in remembrance), Tim McGraw, Alan Jackson, Mickey Mouse, Shrek, Sandra Bullock, and many, many more. I still did not make it to Humphrey Bogart's, and I swear with my hand up to God that I will not leave this town until I get a picture of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bogie's house is in a restricted area, his gravesite is under lock and key... I deserve to at least see his star!!
We walked down to Grauman's Chinese Theatre to check in for our first tour of the day - homes of the stars! In front of the theatre is where stars who have had a movie premiere there AND are invited by the Chinese Theatre put their hands and feet and other parts of their body or mementos associated with them in concrete. For example, Roy Rogers and Trigger's has his horse shoes and Roy's gun imprinted in the concrete; John Wayne imprinted his fist; the stars of the Harry Potter series left imprints of their magic wands, etc. It's VERY cool. The stars also signed in the concrete and some wrote funny sayings, i.e., Arnold wrote "I'll be back." After taking tons of pictures of these, we boarded our open van for the tour. It was a small tour - there was only about 10 or 11 of us, and the tour guide was great. We saw so many stars' homes and I have spent the last few hours trying to remember which one is who's! Some that we saw: Orlando Bloom (and that might have been him standing in the garage with his back to the road!!! The hair color and build were about right.), Robert Pattinson, Lucille Ball, Sylvester Stallone, Peter Falk, David & Victoria Beckham, Mark Wahlburg, George Clooney, Nicholas Cage, Dr. Phil, Michael Jackson, Snoop Dog, Wolfgang Puck, Mariah Carey, and Tom Selleck. Some that we only saw the gate include: Elvis, Frank Sinatra, and Madonna. Former homes of the stars we saw: the Osbournes, James Dean, Roseanne & Tom Arnold. Then there are several that Mom and I can't remember whose house they were! I'll keep working on that. I'll also try to post pictures of some of these another night.
We also saw the houses where scenes from "Halloween" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" were filmed; the Beverly Whilshire Hotel (where scenes from Pretty Woman was filmed); the Beverly Hills Police station looking pretty much like it did in "Beverly Hills Cop;" Chateau Marmont where John Belushi died; the Viper Room where River Phoenix died; the Whiskey a Go Go; Capitol records (that round building), the house from "The Beverly Hillbillies;" the Hollywood sign; and Rodeo Drive. There was a lot packed into this tour!
After we finished this tour, we walked up Hollywood Blvd, looking at more stars, to the Egyptian Theatre to sign up for our next tour. It's a 75 minute walking tour of the area. We had a couple of hours before that tour started so we walked back down and had lunch at Hard Rock. Our server was from Kentucky and was so sweet. We tried a nonalcoholic drink: Mango with Orange juice and Red Bull. It was good. And I definitely felt that energy boost immediately! We each picked out a Hard Luck pin (mine being just the basic Hard Rock guitar with 'Hollywood' on it and Mom's being the pink guitar with the breast cancer awareness ribbon) and the total came to $26!!!! Things are definitely more expensive in Hollywood!
After lunch, we walked and took more pictures of stars on the sidewalk and made our way back to the Egyptian Theatre for our tour. Again, it was a great tour. This one is a walking tour, but they gave us headphones to wear so we could hear everything the tour guide said, whether she was ahead of us, had her back turned, or whatever. It was great. Probably one of the few tours I've ever taken where I didn't miss a thing. We toured the Egyptian Theatre (also built by Sid Grauman and is older than his Chinese Theatre), and it is beautiful... reminded me our our Fox - which I told our tour guide about. We saw stars on the sidewalk again, and she pointed out places where movie scenes had been shot (including from "The Italian Job" where the Mini Coopers drive down into the Metro station!). She took us back to the Chinese Theatre and gave us more stories about the concrete impressions there, plus pointed out some Mom and I had missed that morning. It was a really good tour... and hopefully our tour guide will make it to the Academy Awards one day. :)
We got to see them setting up for the premiere of "Secretariat" tonight at the El Capitan (Disney's) Theatre, complete with red carpet. That was pretty neat to see how they set it up cause it looks so different on TV.
It had gotten rather warm by the afternoon, and Mom and I were dropping fast. But we wanted to squeeze in one more thing from our City Pass for the day so we walked just a couple of blocks to the Hollywood Museum. It is located in the old Max Factor building (Did you know that it was Max Factor that turned Lucile Ball into a redhead? She was just another blonde in Hollywood and wasn't getting discovered until he made her a redhead. She never looked back.), and there were several rooms on display of his makeup and work with the stars. The museum had a lot of gowns and outfits worn by the stars at award shows or in the movies. They had Elvis's favorite bathrobe; nude pictures of Marilyn Monroe; and the bottle from "I Dream of Jeannie." They also had Hannibal Lector's jail cell down in the basement, but Mom and I were too tired to go down the stairs and back up! LOL So we cut the visit to the museum kind of short. Mom was so tired, she didn't even want to shop for souvenirs. We picked up one item for a friend of mine and headed back to the car. I would have killed someone for a glass of COLD water, so I swung into a McDonald's... I had water in one cup holder, and a Coke in my hand! Again, the traffic wasn't bad back to our motel.
(Oh and I have yet to see a Chick-fil-A... godforsaken place!)
We ordered in from a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner, and it was pretty good. We are both so sore, we can hardly move and very, very tired.
Another big day tomorrow: finish Hollywood (got to see Bogie's star and our last City Pass ticket is for the wax museum), hopefully visit the scrapbook store, the house where my mom's family lived when she was born, and drive to San Bernardino where we will visit my great-grandparents' graves, the college Mom attended, and the original McDonald's. Then it's on to Redlands for the first event of Reunion weekend. Darn, I'm tired just typing all that!
I set Samantha on "Shorter Distance" so she would avoid the freeways, and the drive was fine. No big traffic pileups - there may be a lot of cars, but they keep moving. Cell phone use is illegal while driving, and I can see that makes a BIG difference. We found the parking garage at Hollywood and Highland and other than a van trying to run over me (Mom thinks they filmed "Speed" in that parking garage!), we had no problems. We found our way outside onto Hollywood Blvd and found stars on the Walk of Fame immediately. They are up and down both sides of Hollywood Blvd. I took pictures of so many such as: Bill Cosby, Jamie Lee Curtis, Vivien Leigh, Tony Curtis (with a candle and wreath in remembrance), Tim McGraw, Alan Jackson, Mickey Mouse, Shrek, Sandra Bullock, and many, many more. I still did not make it to Humphrey Bogart's, and I swear with my hand up to God that I will not leave this town until I get a picture of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bogie's house is in a restricted area, his gravesite is under lock and key... I deserve to at least see his star!!
We walked down to Grauman's Chinese Theatre to check in for our first tour of the day - homes of the stars! In front of the theatre is where stars who have had a movie premiere there AND are invited by the Chinese Theatre put their hands and feet and other parts of their body or mementos associated with them in concrete. For example, Roy Rogers and Trigger's has his horse shoes and Roy's gun imprinted in the concrete; John Wayne imprinted his fist; the stars of the Harry Potter series left imprints of their magic wands, etc. It's VERY cool. The stars also signed in the concrete and some wrote funny sayings, i.e., Arnold wrote "I'll be back." After taking tons of pictures of these, we boarded our open van for the tour. It was a small tour - there was only about 10 or 11 of us, and the tour guide was great. We saw so many stars' homes and I have spent the last few hours trying to remember which one is who's! Some that we saw: Orlando Bloom (and that might have been him standing in the garage with his back to the road!!! The hair color and build were about right.), Robert Pattinson, Lucille Ball, Sylvester Stallone, Peter Falk, David & Victoria Beckham, Mark Wahlburg, George Clooney, Nicholas Cage, Dr. Phil, Michael Jackson, Snoop Dog, Wolfgang Puck, Mariah Carey, and Tom Selleck. Some that we only saw the gate include: Elvis, Frank Sinatra, and Madonna. Former homes of the stars we saw: the Osbournes, James Dean, Roseanne & Tom Arnold. Then there are several that Mom and I can't remember whose house they were! I'll keep working on that. I'll also try to post pictures of some of these another night.
We also saw the houses where scenes from "Halloween" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" were filmed; the Beverly Whilshire Hotel (where scenes from Pretty Woman was filmed); the Beverly Hills Police station looking pretty much like it did in "Beverly Hills Cop;" Chateau Marmont where John Belushi died; the Viper Room where River Phoenix died; the Whiskey a Go Go; Capitol records (that round building), the house from "The Beverly Hillbillies;" the Hollywood sign; and Rodeo Drive. There was a lot packed into this tour!
After we finished this tour, we walked up Hollywood Blvd, looking at more stars, to the Egyptian Theatre to sign up for our next tour. It's a 75 minute walking tour of the area. We had a couple of hours before that tour started so we walked back down and had lunch at Hard Rock. Our server was from Kentucky and was so sweet. We tried a nonalcoholic drink: Mango with Orange juice and Red Bull. It was good. And I definitely felt that energy boost immediately! We each picked out a Hard Luck pin (mine being just the basic Hard Rock guitar with 'Hollywood' on it and Mom's being the pink guitar with the breast cancer awareness ribbon) and the total came to $26!!!! Things are definitely more expensive in Hollywood!
After lunch, we walked and took more pictures of stars on the sidewalk and made our way back to the Egyptian Theatre for our tour. Again, it was a great tour. This one is a walking tour, but they gave us headphones to wear so we could hear everything the tour guide said, whether she was ahead of us, had her back turned, or whatever. It was great. Probably one of the few tours I've ever taken where I didn't miss a thing. We toured the Egyptian Theatre (also built by Sid Grauman and is older than his Chinese Theatre), and it is beautiful... reminded me our our Fox - which I told our tour guide about. We saw stars on the sidewalk again, and she pointed out places where movie scenes had been shot (including from "The Italian Job" where the Mini Coopers drive down into the Metro station!). She took us back to the Chinese Theatre and gave us more stories about the concrete impressions there, plus pointed out some Mom and I had missed that morning. It was a really good tour... and hopefully our tour guide will make it to the Academy Awards one day. :)
We got to see them setting up for the premiere of "Secretariat" tonight at the El Capitan (Disney's) Theatre, complete with red carpet. That was pretty neat to see how they set it up cause it looks so different on TV.
It had gotten rather warm by the afternoon, and Mom and I were dropping fast. But we wanted to squeeze in one more thing from our City Pass for the day so we walked just a couple of blocks to the Hollywood Museum. It is located in the old Max Factor building (Did you know that it was Max Factor that turned Lucile Ball into a redhead? She was just another blonde in Hollywood and wasn't getting discovered until he made her a redhead. She never looked back.), and there were several rooms on display of his makeup and work with the stars. The museum had a lot of gowns and outfits worn by the stars at award shows or in the movies. They had Elvis's favorite bathrobe; nude pictures of Marilyn Monroe; and the bottle from "I Dream of Jeannie." They also had Hannibal Lector's jail cell down in the basement, but Mom and I were too tired to go down the stairs and back up! LOL So we cut the visit to the museum kind of short. Mom was so tired, she didn't even want to shop for souvenirs. We picked up one item for a friend of mine and headed back to the car. I would have killed someone for a glass of COLD water, so I swung into a McDonald's... I had water in one cup holder, and a Coke in my hand! Again, the traffic wasn't bad back to our motel.
(Oh and I have yet to see a Chick-fil-A... godforsaken place!)
We ordered in from a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner, and it was pretty good. We are both so sore, we can hardly move and very, very tired.
Another big day tomorrow: finish Hollywood (got to see Bogie's star and our last City Pass ticket is for the wax museum), hopefully visit the scrapbook store, the house where my mom's family lived when she was born, and drive to San Bernardino where we will visit my great-grandparents' graves, the college Mom attended, and the original McDonald's. Then it's on to Redlands for the first event of Reunion weekend. Darn, I'm tired just typing all that!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Day 1: California Trip - Arrival in LA, Santa Monica Beach & Pier, Malibu
The flight was uneventful. Kind of long. Thank goodness we had picked up subs at Quizno's on the concourse so we would have lunch on the plane. That worked out well! The flight was smooth... got to LA ahead of schedule, but that's where our good airline/airport luck ended.
You know, I have heard all sorts of talk about how big other airports are... Chicago's O'Hare is HUGE, LAX is HUGE... pfft on all of them! Atlanta has it going on. The more I travel, the more impressed I am with our airport. We landed in LA, followed the signs to baggage claim. There are only 3 or 4 baggage carousels!!! Yep, that's it! And the ceiling is open with all these dusty pipes showing... I'm hoping that was the result of unfinished remodeling, though no one was working on it today! There were NO - Zero - Zilch security guards around the baggage carousels. I'm not kidding. In Atlanta, you don't get out the door without a security guard checking that you don't have someone else's luggage. Here, there was no one to ask any questions of or anything. There were no more signs there for ground transportation, so I finally went over to the Frontier Airline office and asked a lady there where to go and she just barely told me to go out front on the street. There are no signs out there either. So of course we ended up standing in the wrong place, waiting for our car rental van. Thank goodness some nice parking shuttle van driver pulled over and told us where to meet our van. We made it to the car rental place and had to wait in line and then had to wait for a car since they only had one car available in the class we chose, and that car was unacceptable to us (The trunk lid was like an SUV so anyone could look in and see our suitcases, etc., break the glass, and have fun.) The car we ended up with is a Kia and I love it. It drives so great. And it will fly! (I mean it seems that it would... not that I've tested it...)
We then drove to our motel (of course, I drove past the entrance the first time and had to go down and u-turn) and checked in. We're staying at the LaQuinta near the airport. It's nice. I've always been happy with LaQuinta. And it's a good jumping off place for the places we are going to visit.
After dropping a couple of suitcases at the room, we hit the road again. Thank goodness for GPS. It's like my cell phone - I can't remember my life without it. She (My GPS is Samantha.) actually took us on the 405 and the 10 (That's what they call interstates out here. Not I-405 or I-10, but the 405... and they're freeways here.), but traffic wasn't bad at all. After a couple of round-a-bouts and a u-turn, we made it to the Santa Monica beach and pier. We walked around the pier and took pictures and then walked down to the water. I got to put my feet in the Pacific Ocean! It was very cool. I just giggled like a child. Picked up a couple of shells - there weren't many around. Left there and drove up the coast on the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu. Beautiful scenery. The ocean was on our left and walls of rock on our right... with houses up on top of that rock! Stopped and ate dinner at a seafood place... I had to have them re-do my meal since they didn't ask me if I wanted cole slaw and evidently they serve it with all meals. Well, that's fine, I can just ignore it or scrape it off my plate, but oh no! They had put cole slaw all over the plate and piled the rest of our food on top! I don't like mayonnaise - UGH! But once they fixed that, the food was excellent. I had the grilled tilapia.
We continued up the coast past Pepperdine University and then we turned around and headed back here to the motel. Came a different way (no freeways) and saw some interesting things. They like their liquor stores out here - we even saw one "Liquor and Deli" place. They also like tattoos. Oh and the strangest thing we saw is that evidently out here it is legal for motorcycles to just drive up the white line in between cars while they are moving!!!! We thought the first guy was just crazy, but then we saw it two more times...so I guess it's an accepted custom out here. It's kind of freaky and dangerous to me!!
Well, our internal clocks say it's after midnight while it's only 9:15 here. But Mom just turned the lights out and I don't think I'm too far behind her. It's been a long day, but I am thrilled that the first day turned out so well. I wish I had taken more pictures, especially of some of the highway signs on the PCH - "Rock Slides next 5 miles" or "Drunk Driver - Call 911" or "Rough Road Ahead" with a "For Rent" sign below it! But with the traffic here, it's not real safe to make sudden stops to take those kinds of pictures. Oh, well.
I hope Hollywood is great fun tomorrow!
You know, I have heard all sorts of talk about how big other airports are... Chicago's O'Hare is HUGE, LAX is HUGE... pfft on all of them! Atlanta has it going on. The more I travel, the more impressed I am with our airport. We landed in LA, followed the signs to baggage claim. There are only 3 or 4 baggage carousels!!! Yep, that's it! And the ceiling is open with all these dusty pipes showing... I'm hoping that was the result of unfinished remodeling, though no one was working on it today! There were NO - Zero - Zilch security guards around the baggage carousels. I'm not kidding. In Atlanta, you don't get out the door without a security guard checking that you don't have someone else's luggage. Here, there was no one to ask any questions of or anything. There were no more signs there for ground transportation, so I finally went over to the Frontier Airline office and asked a lady there where to go and she just barely told me to go out front on the street. There are no signs out there either. So of course we ended up standing in the wrong place, waiting for our car rental van. Thank goodness some nice parking shuttle van driver pulled over and told us where to meet our van. We made it to the car rental place and had to wait in line and then had to wait for a car since they only had one car available in the class we chose, and that car was unacceptable to us (The trunk lid was like an SUV so anyone could look in and see our suitcases, etc., break the glass, and have fun.) The car we ended up with is a Kia and I love it. It drives so great. And it will fly! (I mean it seems that it would... not that I've tested it...)
We then drove to our motel (of course, I drove past the entrance the first time and had to go down and u-turn) and checked in. We're staying at the LaQuinta near the airport. It's nice. I've always been happy with LaQuinta. And it's a good jumping off place for the places we are going to visit.
After dropping a couple of suitcases at the room, we hit the road again. Thank goodness for GPS. It's like my cell phone - I can't remember my life without it. She (My GPS is Samantha.) actually took us on the 405 and the 10 (That's what they call interstates out here. Not I-405 or I-10, but the 405... and they're freeways here.), but traffic wasn't bad at all. After a couple of round-a-bouts and a u-turn, we made it to the Santa Monica beach and pier. We walked around the pier and took pictures and then walked down to the water. I got to put my feet in the Pacific Ocean! It was very cool. I just giggled like a child. Picked up a couple of shells - there weren't many around. Left there and drove up the coast on the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu. Beautiful scenery. The ocean was on our left and walls of rock on our right... with houses up on top of that rock! Stopped and ate dinner at a seafood place... I had to have them re-do my meal since they didn't ask me if I wanted cole slaw and evidently they serve it with all meals. Well, that's fine, I can just ignore it or scrape it off my plate, but oh no! They had put cole slaw all over the plate and piled the rest of our food on top! I don't like mayonnaise - UGH! But once they fixed that, the food was excellent. I had the grilled tilapia.
We continued up the coast past Pepperdine University and then we turned around and headed back here to the motel. Came a different way (no freeways) and saw some interesting things. They like their liquor stores out here - we even saw one "Liquor and Deli" place. They also like tattoos. Oh and the strangest thing we saw is that evidently out here it is legal for motorcycles to just drive up the white line in between cars while they are moving!!!! We thought the first guy was just crazy, but then we saw it two more times...so I guess it's an accepted custom out here. It's kind of freaky and dangerous to me!!
Well, our internal clocks say it's after midnight while it's only 9:15 here. But Mom just turned the lights out and I don't think I'm too far behind her. It's been a long day, but I am thrilled that the first day turned out so well. I wish I had taken more pictures, especially of some of the highway signs on the PCH - "Rock Slides next 5 miles" or "Drunk Driver - Call 911" or "Rough Road Ahead" with a "For Rent" sign below it! But with the traffic here, it's not real safe to make sudden stops to take those kinds of pictures. Oh, well.
I hope Hollywood is great fun tomorrow!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
My first view of the Pacific Ocean!
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