Our USA Adventure - Days 66 to 70 - Hollywood & Laguna Beach

We have now left Hollywood (hurrah) it was just all a bit grungy. Lots of homelessness people, dirty, noisy. All those things. We didn’t want to drive in the evening, as parking was always an issue, and we didn’t want to walk far, so dinner three out of the four nights was in the same Thai restaurant just opposite. Fortunately it was very good.

The Chinese Theatre, the start of our bus tour

Thursday we got a bus back towards the Chinese Theatre to catch an open top, hop on hop off bus. It was cold, with the possibility of rain. We could dress for it, but it all seemed a bit ‘foreign’ to the locals. We hopped off a couple of times, firstly in Beverly Hills which was a whole different world to Hollywood. Brian had a thing about walking down Rodeo Drive, I’m still not sure why, but we’ve ticked it off the list.

Lots of stars have put their hand, footprints and names in wet concrete at the entrance. Harrison Ford's is at the front there 

The second stop was at La Brea tarpits, as recommended by a friend of Maggie and Fred’s who’d stopped by when we were visiting, and then called her friend, who lives in LA, and put her on speakerphone to find out what we should do while we were here. Right in the middle of the bustling city, are pits that asphalt was dug from. These pits are still soft squishy tar, as they have been for hundreds of thousands of years. Bubbling with methane. In 1915 the city museum was given 2 years to dig for as many fossils as they could find, and they found huge numbers. Animals would go down to the pits to drink (there could be a layer of water on the top), where they would get trapped by the sticky tar, and die. Predators then came to eat them and also got trapped.

This is the Guitar Centre on Sunset Boulevard, the place people in the know buy their guitars. Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney to name but two

In 2009 while digging for an underground carpark 23 crates of fossils were removed, which are still being painstakingly gone through. To date, they have done about half the boxes and according to Wikipedia, “Among the finds are remains of a saber-toothed Cat, dire wolves, bison, horse, a giant ground sloth, turtles, snails, clams, millipedes, fish, gophers, and an American lion. Also discovered is a nearly intact mammoth skeleton, nicknamed Zed; the only pieces missing are a rear leg, a vertebra, and the top of its skull, which was sheared off by construction equipment in preparation to build the parking structure.” They are also going through looking for minuscule shells, bits of bone, plant matter. In fact some of these poor people spend their lives in a goldfish bowl, peering down microscopes, while visitors peer at them. There was also a 3D movie, which continuing with the ‘lucky us’ theme we were given tickets to. All I did was go and ask how much it was? ($6 each if you want to know) We thoroughly recommend this as a visit.

And there, in the doorway are the handprints of the names of the famous guitarists who have shopped here

Friday we did do a bit more ‘Hollywood’, a visit to the Warner Brothers studio. An hour being driven round the lot, and sound stages, through jungles and mid western streets, hearing about what this and that has been used for. That if a production wants winter trees, all the leaves are picked off the trees. If another production then wants summer, they are cable tied back on! There were then two self guided portions, which, as usual we spent far longer on than the average. There was lots of ‘Friends’ stuff, which I loved, and lots of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ which we’ve never watched, in one area, and lots of superheroes and Harry Potter in another. The actual sorting hat from the movie put me in HufflePuff, but I don’t know if this is good or bad! Looking it up: “Students belonging to this house were known to be hard-working, friendly, loyal, honest and rather impartial. It might be that due to their values, Hufflepuffs were not as competitive as the other houses, and were more modest about their accomplishments. Hufflepuff was the most inclusive among the four houses; valuing hard work, dedication, patience, loyalty, and fair play rather than a particular aptitude in its students.

The Directors Guild of America building. These people hold the key to Hollywood. Apparently some years ago they went on strike for 100 days, which cost the city over $2 billion in lost revenue from stars, films, caterers, shops etc. The city is almost totally dependent on the film industry

Hufflepuffs were known to have a strong moral code, and a sense of right and wrong. Hufflepuffs were usually accepting of everyone. Students in Hufflepuff were known to value everyone and treat them as equal.” On the whole, I think I’m quite happy with that!

Beverly Hills, even the fire hydrants are painted differently here and refuse bins are stored in special alleys as they can't be seen on display

To make a change, and because we were in the movie city, we decided to go to the cinema. The nearest was Los Feliz cinema with three tiny screens. We saw the Fabelmans, the new Spielberg movie, released in the U.K. at the end of January and very loosely based on Spielberg’s growing up. Scores very highly on IMDB and I enjoyed it too.

Rodeo Drive. All the shops have security guards outside, we didn't go in any. Of course, no prices were displayed on anything, I guess if you have to ask the price you can't afford it

Saturday was another of Brian’s wish list, the Hollywood sign. We joined a guided hike, it just seemed easier. If Matthew Garcia ever makes it big, we will be able to say that we knew him before! He was entertaining, and he did know which way to go and where to park, so it was probably worth it. We knew we would be in Griffith Park and we knew the observatory was in Griffith Park, in fact we took pictures of it. We didn’t know it would take 25 minutes to drive to it. 10km to drive and about 3km as the crow flies! It was free to get in, which was a plus, but made it a popular place on a Saturday afternoon!

The Beverly Wilshire 5 star hotel at the end of Rodeo Drive. Apparently scenes from the film Pretty Woman were filmed here and on Rodeo Drive.  I just looked their website and you could stay here for $895 per night, but you'd be slumming it. The Presidential Suite is $15,000 per night and they so have two higher rated suites that they ask you to phone for rates

I couldn’t wait to leave L.A. Brian wanted to spend a day in the old town, but I’d had enough. We had planned Disneyland, in our heads, but obviously some things need more planning than that. The first one day ticket available is for the 18th. We’ll be back in Albuquerque by then! So today we came down to Laguna Beach where we stopped at the marine mammal conservation centre, to see little rescued seals and sealions. Went to ‘The Top of the World’ for a photo op, and hiking though neither of us were actually in the mood, we’ve walked miles over the last few days. So we’ve walked gently along the coast and enjoyed our lovely hotel, where again, we were upgraded to a king bed! Tomorrow is another city San Diego!

The Brea Tar Pits museum and this is a sculpture depicting a female mammoth stuck in the tar pit shouting for help. This is one of the actual tar pits with a layer of water over the top. A death trap for everything that ventured in to get water. The thick, gloopy tar beneath the surface traps all who enter. Apparently there are big oil reserves beneath here, the tar is forced to the surface under pressure. Animals even today are still getting trapped and sucked under 

They have recovered thousands of skeletons from the pits. This is an antique bison, long since extinct. Many extinct animals have been recovered, some very well preserved, even with flesh still on them, allowing detailed examination to further our knowledge of the past

Jackie trying to pull a plunger out of some of the gloop. It's very hard, but if you have nothing to pull against, you're done for, struggling just makes it worse

Methane bubbling up through one of the tar pits. They look so innocuous, you can imagine how animals blundered in 

We went into a cemetery by Paramount studios where many famous people are buried (the closest we'll be to stars), mainly because Jackie had heard there were many feral cats there (we didn't see any, only peacocks). However, what we did see was the grave for Toto, the dog in Wizard of Oz with Dorothy (Judy Garland) 

Next day was our Warner Brothers Studio tour. Now, how many photos do I put on, I have hundreds! I'll try and cut it down...

Here we are on the Friends sofa, in front of the Friends fountain. This is the real fountain, but it used to be a mile or so away but were moved here

And here we are in the real set and sofa from the Friends tv series. Again, it's not in its original position but has been moved here. I know little about Friends, it passed me by, by Jackie has watched them all. It ran for 10 years from 22nd September 1994 until 6th May 2004, was originally titled Friends Like Us, but changed to Six of One for the pilot episode then finally just Friends

This is the original scenes for The Big Bang Theory. Unfortunately this passed us both by, so we have no comments to make, but others were getting incredibly excited to see this

We thoroughly enjoyed this section which dealt with brainstorming for new tv and film shows and included recorded interviewers with writers and casting directors and the processes they go through. These are a few of the scripts they go through and then cast aside. Just imagine, some budding writer has probably spent months, or years creating a script that just ends up on this pile

An example, but the process they go through to select aspiring actors to fill roles. They have the power to make or break someones career, but if they get the selection wrong it could break their career. It's a tough game for everyone involved. It'll rip your heart out as more than one person said

There were many rooms with actual costumes worn for films. These are from My Fair Lady

Various superhero costumes worn by the actual stars

Various vehicles used in the Batman movies. There was so much of this stuff I can't show it all (although I have loads more photos). Suffice to say, we had a great day, spent longer than most people there and found it very, very informative. We were recommended to go to Warner Brothers and our searches on Google bore out that this was the best one to go to. They are all here, Universal, Paramount, Disney, CBS etc

I must put this on though. It's a Youtube of Jackie doing a voiceover on a Friends scene. Apparently this process is followed by stars after a scene is filmed if the audio is not up to standard. They have to go into a studio and voice over to make it clear. Of course they have to match their mouth movements exactly. See how its done by watching this. Do you think Jackie did a good job?

I have to put one more on, me holding an oscar! It is a real one, from 1956 apparently

Next day was our walk to the Hollywood sign. You can watch a short Relive video of our route with a few more photos: click here

On the left there is our guide Matthew Garcia, he's a young, enthusiastic guy who wants to be a film star. He moved from Texas to Hollywood and is devoting is life to acting. He has a commercial agent who has got him some work doing some tv adverts. We've seen one of him doing a McDonalds commercial. Will he make it? Probably not, but you never know. I have his contact details and if he ever makes it I told him I'd come out to see him as a star and he promised he would see me even if he's famous (I bet he wouldn't)

We stopped halfway up to do silly photos. This was the best one of me and a crap one of Jackie (there was a good one of Jackie and crap one of me but I didn't put that one on!

The Griffith Observatory as seen, zoomed in, on our walk. It doesn't look that far, but it was quite a long drive

Down there is Burbank, the red tiled building with Animation on the top is the Disney animation studio and, just left is a giant blue pointed Mickey Mouse hat. Warner Brothers, where we went yesterday is the building and area to the left just going out of view

We also had pretty good views of downtown Los Angeles. A bit hazy here, but later, when we were at the observatory it was much clearer

Finally we made it to the top and this is as close as we can get. The whole site is under very heavy security after several violations over the years where people have altered them. One managed to change it to Hollyweed, others have damaged them so, now, it's all fenced off, with motion sensors, cameras, sirens and, if all else fails they send helicopters out

Another bit of the sign

And here we are on top for another of those photos. You can see downtown LA on the left, Hollywood is down there behind us

I quite liked this photo taken on the way down. It's at such an acute angle that the H is behind the O so it reads Ohllywood. I wonder how many other people have a photo of that?

Onto the Griffith Observatory, a really interesting free exhibit, donated by Griffith J Griffith, along with the Greek Theatre down the hill and all the huge Griffith Park. There is a car park up here but it was a Saturday afternoon and very busy so we decided to park down the hill and walk steeply up. We've got another Relive video with more photos if you're interested: click here

Here's another shot of downtown LA, see how much clearer it is now in the afternoon

All the exhibits inside were really interesting, we could have spent all day there, but time was getting on. We went up to queue to see the telescope trained onto Vega, the sun of another part of the sky. It was as big through the eyepiece as our own sun. Very strange to look at the sun of another world

Its quite an old telescope (from the 1930's I think), but it still does the job

We just got back inside in time to see a demonstration of the Tesla Coil. Invented by Nikola Tesla in 1891, it produces very high voltages and he hoped it would enable electricity to be transmitted without wires

It does work, because those lights are not connected to anything, the electricity flowing through the air in that booth is enough to ilmuninate those lights

This morning we left Hollywood and LA for Laguna Beach, on the way calling at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center. They specialise in rescuing harbour, elephant, fur seals and sea lions. Usually they are infants that got injured or separated from their parents that cannot survive on their own. They treat them, feed them and then release them back into the wild. This is a young sea lion 

And this was feeding time. Fish have been thrown in for them to dive down to catch, as they would in the wild. The Egret knows whats happening here and flew in to see if he could join in

This is a view from the Top Of The World, a wildlife refuge just outside Laguna Beach where we're staying. It a huge area packed with fabulous looking hikes and mountain bike routes and, being a Sunday, it was very busy. We had no idea this was here, maybe we should have stayed for another couple of days. As it was we were both really tired after all the walking we've done recently, so we just went for a little stroll and went into Laguna Beach

We checked in to our very nice motel (The Tides Laguna Beach - they even left us a handwritten note thanking us for choosing to stay there) and went for something to eat and drink followed by a stroll along the headland in what is a lovely seaside resort

Its very well kept and a pleasure to walk round

We were intrigued by this guy moving quite fast across a flat calm Pacific Ocean with almost no wind. What force is carrying him along? This was at maximum zoom on my camera, he was at least 200m out. We sent our friend, Mark a WhatsApp with a copy and he told us it's an electric hover foil. He looks pretty cool!

We came back and started to write this blog by the pool, later they lit a log fire in the outdoor fireplace which has chairs positioned round it. I was going to post these photos while sitting out there but we came in in the end. Wish we were stopping here for a few more days, but we've booked somewhere in San Diego tomorrow, so back to another city!