We started the day with a pretty decent breakfast at the FogChaser Inn. Reluctantly leaving the really nice accommodations, we hit the road before 10 o’clock and continued our journey towards Los Angeles (specifically, Hollywood) on route 1. Before too long the road turned inland and our route merged with 101 as we traveled through scrub-covered brown hills inland through San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria.
Morning at Cambria's beach
Fog rolling into Cambria off of the ocean
South of Santa Maria we passed through a stunning mountain range, the Santa Ynez, one of a few entirely east-west mountain ranges in the United States. The mountains were once the bed of an ancient sea, thrust upwards and tilted almost 90 degrees (to near vertical). Also these mountains were more tree covered than many of the hills and mountains a bit further inland.
Santa Ynez Mountains of Southern California
Once to the coast again we went through Santa Barbara. We took a very slight detour to see the county courthouse, the exterior of which is used as the police headquarters on the show Psych (which is mostly filmed in British Columbia). As the view was on the left hand side of the car (stupid one-way roads!), Addison did photo duty from the backseat of our car. We had considered parking and taking pictures on foot but we didn’t want to delay getting to Los Angeles (and beating, hopefully, rush hour) and there weren’t any parking spaces to be easily had. Also, in a moment of almost pure zen — just as we were nearing the courthouse Hall & Oates’ “Private Eyes” came on the radio — not only relevant as that is what Psych is about, but because they did a commercial to that song not long ago.
Santa Barbara Courthouse, used for some exterior shots for Psych
Hopped back on route 101 until Oxnard when we decided to proceed to Los Angeles via route 1 hugging the coast. As it was well past noon we stopped for lunch. Once again we missed an In-N-Out (I WILL have one before we fly out!) and ended up at Elena’s Kitchen, a Philippine restaurant. I had the beef steak with onions in a salty broth over noodles, as did Addison. Michelle and Genetta had little egg rolls with some sort of meat (pork, I think?) in them as well as some chicken with rice.
The stretch from Oxnard to Santa Monica was impressive (but not as much as Big Sur). We particularly enjoyed seeing Malibu (beautiful town and beaches) and the planes outside the USN base — a F4 and I think a F14. When we got to Malibu we could see a really impressive thunderstorm off in the distance but I imagine it was far, far away as none of the area we subsequently drove through had any rain. We also got radar scanned by a CHiP — an actual California Highway Patrol officer sitting on his parked bike and wearing the beige uniform. Fun!
Beach west of Malibu, California
Malibu homes perched on a mountainside
Upon arrival in Santa Monica we drove up the California Incline (which was a bit steep, but nothing by San Francisco standards) to Ocean Avenue. Caught a quick glimpse of the pier (didn’t see Iron Man there, though) before turning left on Santa Monica Boulevard. We decided, for better or for worse, to just drive to our hotel (in Hollywood near the Walk of Fame) by traveling the entire time on that road. Not only because we didn’t want to deal with the freeway but also because we wanted to see some of the sights along the way.
Thunderstorm north of Santa Monica
We saw a bit of Beverly Hills, the Troubadour, and the Beverly Hills City Hall (very impressive). The traffic was pretty heavy at times, and we saw the fire department and an ambulance attending to a downed bikers. Speaking of which, are they all crazy on the West coast? Both in San Francisco and Los Angeles they seem to like to go between lanes of traffic stopped at lights to get near the front of the line. Is that even legal? I thought they had to behave like cars in all regards. Anyway, a healthy example to the kids not to get into riding motorcycles (at least not at their young ages).
Beverly Hills' City Hall tower
Turning up Highland and passing the Highland and Hollywood intersection where the Dolby (formerly Kodak, of Oscar night fame) theater is located we quickly found our hotel and turned the car over to them for safekeeping until Saturday when we drive to the airport to drop it off. We went up to the room for an hour or so to rest before setting out to explore a little bit on foot at about 5 o’clock.
Ubiquitous movie ads!
We headed down to Highland and Hollywood, soaking in some of the atmosphere. Many people milled about dressed as movie characters and posing for pictures (and some money, of course): Zorro, a stormtrooper, Darth Vader, Jack Sparrow, several Batmen and a Bane or two, you name it. On the ground were the famous stars of the Walk of Fame.
Just beyond the Dolby Theater was Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, built in 1927 and home to the Oscars a few times and many, many premieres including Star Wars in 1977. In addition to the interesting style of the theater there were many concrete block with stars’ handprints, footprints, and signatures on them.
Grauman's Chinese Theatre, home of movie premieres since 1927
Statue in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre
Roy Rogers' cement signature
We returned back to the Dolby Theater and saw that there were posts with the best picture winners for every year since the first (Wings in 1927) on them. Nifty. The Dolby Theater was really more than just the theater (which hosts the Oscars) as there were five stories of shopping and restaurants as well. Michelle checked out the Fossil store before we headed to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. A friendly saleswoman at the store told us about the recent Yorba Linda quakes and that the Dolby Theater mall itself was on wheels so as to move with any quakes.
Courtyard near the Dolby (formerly, Kodak) Theater
From the CPK’s balcony I could clearly see the Hollywood sign in the distance. Dinner was decent, if a bit safe. Afterwards we went back to the central courtyard of the mall, which had some impressive statuary and decoration and also a water fountain that people (who were waaaay too nicely dressed for what they were doing) stood in to cool off. Took some pictures and also of El Capitan Theatre (1926) which was covered for renovations, unfortunately.
Hollywood sign in the distance
Marquee of El Capitan Theatre
Returned back to the entrance of the Dolby Theater as we had not realized that the staircase to the entrance was the staircase seen on Oscar night. I mean, yeah, it had to be, but it looked so different without the golden statues on either side and all. Turns out that prior to the awards they cover up all of the stores adjacent to the stairway with huge red curtains, change the sign that says Dolby Theater, and put in the red carpet. Totally transforming the place, as you’d expect for an awards show about movie magic.
Grand staircase for Academy Awards, shops are covered with a huge red drape
Headed down Hollywood towards Vine in search of John Wayne’s star but turned around as it was getting dark and it was a bit farther than we had anticipated. We did, however, see the star for Rush and Thomas A. Edison, probably the most important star on the whole Walk of Fame.
Rush in the Limelight
Stopped by McDonalds for some sweet tea and then headed back to the hotel for Olympics and blogging. On the Olympics saw some BMX, including one quarterfinal heat where seven of the eight riders were taken out by one accident. Ouch!
Route for Thursday, August 09, 2012