Los Angeles and Hollywood Tour

As I mentioned in my last blog post, we had a Hollywood/L.A. tour planned. The campground booked it for me through Gray Line. We were supposed to go on a Monday. However, after having dinner with my former foreign exchange student, I thought I should change the day. She told me there’s a lot less traffic on the weekend.

The following day, I went to the campground office. They helped me book the tour and it was really reasonable. I mentioned I’d like to change it to Sunday, February 28. This is how the conversation went after she hung up with the tour company.

Me: Hi, I’d like to see if I can change my tour date.

Employee: Sure, let me give them a call.

She calls up the tour company and when she gets off the phone, she fills me in.

Employee: I’m sorry, they can’t change the date. The Oscars are happening on Sunday and there are a lot of street closures. They aren’t running buses that day.

Ah, of course they are, we’re in town, duh! I had no clue when the Oscars were. How we manage to keep doing these things, who knows. In San Francisco during the 50th Super Bowl and here near Hollywood during their most important event of the year, the Oscars.

So with zero planning, we managed to be in town during this lovely event. But it ended up being pretty darn cool. And to tell you the truth, it was the highlight of our tour. Why? Because we got to see all the clean-up and it didn’t impact our trip much at all.

So without further ado, the highlights.

Hollywood

This is after auto enhance. The tour driver said it was ‘fog’ not ‘smog’, hmmm.

I always wondered why Hollywood was known for films. How did one place become the know all be all for films, acting, comedy and more? On our way into the city, our tour guide explained.

It all has to do with the beginning of the film age. Which in fact originated in New Jersey and New York City. However, in order to film the original black and white movies, the producers could only film during the brightest months, summer. In the long winters of the northeast, filming was laid to rest until summer.

As soon as the railroads were built and traveling west became an easier prospect, the film producers made their journey. They went in search of light and they’d been told the desert would be an ideal location.

They tried several states to include Texas and Arizona. But when they stepped off the train and landed in Los Angeles, they knew they’d found their location. They could film year round with no down time. And there you have it folks, the birth of Hollywood. I thought this was pretty fascinating and never put two and two together.

Our highlight to Hollywood was definitely being there the day after the Oscars. While it was a pretty controversial Oscars (in my opinion – think Chris Rock) it was still pretty magical for us. They still had a street or two closed off and they were taking down decorations, etc.

The outside of the ballroom where it took place.

Did you know that the Oscar’s took place inside a mall? We went inside thinking we were in the wrong place, until we saw the staircase. We headed to the ballroom only to realize we weren’t allowed. Oops! That didn’t stop us from picking up a few pieces of confetti. See my Oscar picture of it flying in the air? We managed to get some gold and silver.

We have some of that confetti!

Then it was off to the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre  to see the footprints and names of some stars. We weren’t able to go inside as it cost money and we didn’t have enough time. But it was still cool to see it from the outside. We also were able to take pictures of a few stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

for my nephew Joey

The one thing that I was disappointed in while on the tour was the fact that we couldn’t go down Rodeo Drive to see some of the mansions. It was noted as a highlight of the tour but alas it seems that a new ordinance was in place. They banned vehicles of a certain weight to prevent tour buses from gawking at the stars homes.

Farmer’s Market Lunch

For lunch, we were dropped off at the Farmer’s Market. It used to be a thriving market for farmers back when Los Angeles used to have agricultural land. But that is a thing of the past with only one or two stands selling fresh produce not grown in L.A.

Now it’s a stop with just about anything you’d want to munch on. The assortment ranges anywhere from doughnuts, to french cuisine, to mexican and sushi, just to name a few. We chose Mexican, sushi, pizza and Chinese.

Delish

I wasn’t impressed with my Mexican selection. The food was ah. But the doughnuts that we had were awesome and the girls enjoyed their dessert crepe from the French bakery. After lunch it was off to none other than……..

Beverly Hills/Sunset Strip

There really wasn’t a whole ton to see here. It was cool seeing Beverly Hills in person. We were able to see the backlots of Fox Studios. We were also able to see the set dressed up as ‘New York City’.

Fox Studios

We saw some comedy clubs and famous hotels. We drove past L.A. Ink and the infamous Pink’s hot dog stand.We drove down Sunset Strip which was originally called this when you could get an unobstructed view all the way to the ocean. Of course that’s not possible now.

LA Ink

Santa Monica Beach/Palisades Park and the pier

Our final destination was Santa Monica Beach. The first thing that struck me when we got of the bus was all the homeless people. In fact, that’s what we saw at our very first LA stop. There are a lot of homeless people and it broke my heart.

As always, it’s such a tragedy to see places of extreme wealth alongside poor folks sleeping on the benches in Palisades Park. I’m sure if you’re living on the edge and you have one thing take you down in a city as expensive as LA, it’s nearly impossible to get a foothold back up again. Anyway, I share this only because it was a part of my experience.

Our last stop was 2 hours and I wish it had been flip-flopped with the Hollywood stop. We needed a lot more time there and a lot less time in Santa Monica. It was chilly and we left our coats on the bus. We did walk down to the pier to see all the happenings. We saw a street magician performing with his rabbit.

Then we wandered around trying to kill the time because there really wasn’t much else to do except shop. And the stores were too expensive for my wallet; Abercrombie & Fitch, Armani Exchange, Bridgid Coulter Design, etc.

After our last stop, we boarded the bus and sat back to enjoy a Disney movie. All in all, I thought it was worth it to take the tour bus into LA. I didn’t have to fight the traffic and I was able to get a really good deal on the tour tickets by purchasing them through the RV Park.

I would do it again but I would want to go with a tour company that could take us down Rodeo Drive. Some of the companies have the smaller vans that don’t exceed the weight limit. But who can beat door to door service? We were picked up at the campground and dropped off there too.

Awww, Robin Williams

We pulled out of Anaheim a few days ago. We’re currently hanging out in Tucson with lovely pool water temps. I cannot believe that we’ve already been on the road for six months! We are officially working our way back east with barely two months to go before we arrive home.

The bulk of the trip is behind us. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. Our time on the road has been awesome and I love it. But the kids miss their friends, the house, and daddy.  I, on the other hand,  could pick hubby up and keep on going ;-).

{HUGS} from the Crew!

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