BigWeather's Blog

After a fairly leisurely pace for breakfast and showers we departed the hotel just before 10 o’clock.  Neil Diamond was getting a star at 11:30 but we decided to skip that in favor of seeing other stuff in the area.

The drive in to our hotel had convinced us that it was worth the $100 or so (for all four of us) to buy hop-on hop-off tour bus tickets.  We chose to just do the red line with StarLine tours, concentrating on Hollywood and Beverly Hills and giving us access to the sites we most wanted to see (mainly Sunset Strip and La Brea Tar Pits).  After taking a few shots of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre we piled on the bus, Michelle and Genetta remaining below and Addison and I going up top of the double decker bus.

We had a wait before the tour started so we observed the in-character people working.  Darth Vader did pretty well, though I was disappointed to see he was wearing huge platform shoes.  Captain Jack Sparrow did incredibly well — his look was pretty spot on.  There was also a Iron Man and a Hulk and you know the Avengers movie must’ve really helped their business.  Despite how “meh” their costumes were they were still getting bites.  And then there was poor Charlie Chaplin.  Despite being a convincing likeness nobody wanted anything to do with him.  He just twirled his cane, fidgeted with his umbrella, and made awkward waves towards people.  Sad.

The tour under way, we went by the Roosevelt Hotel where Marilyn Monroe did her first Hollywood shoot — right next to the pool.  Next up was a El Pollo Loco famous for having hired an aspiring actor to wear a chicken suit and advertise on the street corner years ago — Brad Pitt.  We passed The Laugh Factory where many comedians got their start.  On a sadder note we passed the Chateau Marmont where John Belushi died in 1982 and the Viper Club where River Phoenix died in 1993.  Drugs suck.

We also saw The Comedy Store, another comedy club.  Shortly after was the Whisky a Go Go, a club that features prominently in the rock scene from the late-60s through the 90s.  We had originally intended to get off the tour there and walk the short distance to the Rainbow Bar & Grill (it could be seen just beyond the Whisky) but it was much too early for lunch.  Instead we remained on the bus intending to get off at the La Brea Tar Pits and then coming back to the Rainbow.

The tour proceeded onto Santa Monica Boulevard past The Troubadour, a club famous for breaking many acts as well.  Shortly after we entered Beverly Hills, where I spectacularly failed to get a picture of the famous “shield” sign.  We learned that each street has a different tree species it is themed from, and it is that species planted at the entrance to the street.  Also there is an alley between the houses in Beverly Hills where residents have their trash picked up — not only does it hide the garbage collection from view but also protects it from prying eyes I imagine.

We passed the Beverly Hills City Hall again (I have a picture of it in yesterday’s blog) and learned that it was used as the police headquarters for Beverly Hills Cop series of movies.  Nearby was the Presbyterian church where Jimmy Stewart would read Christmas stories on Christmas eve.  Next up was Rodeo drive.  Many people got off there but we knew we’d get the reception Julia Roberts got in Pretty Woman, with the exception that there would be no scene where we’d later come back with loaded bags and say “I was in here yesterday, you wouldn’t wait on me.  Big mistake.  Big.  Huge.”  We did see a men’s suit store called “bijan” that you must have an appointment to even enter.  The suits are in the $15,000 range.  Cuh-razy.  But it looks like they had one customer that could afford it — a Bugatti Veyron was parked out front.  They go for $2.4M and can get up to 267 mph.  What (on both counts)?!

We later passed this fancy mall called Beverly Center before passing a number of restaurants including The Stinking Rose, which specializes in garlic.  Passing a statue of John Wayne we drove down the Miracle Mile, a stretch developed in the 1920s to be auto-centric and giving rise to not only Los Angeles’ “car culture” but in some ways the rest of America’s.  It was the first stretch of road to have timed traffic signals and where every business had parking spaces for cars.

It was in this area of tall buildings that we stopped and got off the tour.  The Los Angeles Count Museum of Art, or LACMA, occupies an area along with the La Brea Tar Pits and the Page Museum dedicated to excavating, researching, and preserving the fossils from the pits.  Across the street we saw a long line of food trucks of many different sorts of cuisine lined up for lunch customers.  That’s simply something we haven’t seen much of in North Carolina but it sure would be nice — why go to Mexican when Mexican can come to you?!

We opted instead for Marie Callender’s right across from the NBC / E! / G4 building.  I wonder if it is the one Conan O’Brien convened his staff at after deciding to leave NBC during that whole Jay Leno debacle?  Michelle, Genetta, and I had the pulled pork sandwich while Addison had a burger.  The pulled pork was great, though of course “western style.”  Still, very tasty.  They had apple pie for dessert while I had a coffee-like pie with a wonderful Oreo crust.

We headed to the La Brea Tar Pits.  It smells like tar, or more correctly, asphalt.  There is a lake in front of the museum that is partially covered by the asphalt and as sections where bubbles percolate to the top — natural gas bubbles.  They have statues of a mother mammoth being unable to escape while the father and child mammoth watch helpless.  Cheery!

In the museum we learned that excavations began in 1913 and to date there have been well over three million bones found, from 600+ species.  Animals would get trapped, unable to remove themselves from the muck.  The larger the surface area of the animal the harder it was to break free.  They had an excellent interactive display where we could try and lift smaller surface area items out of the asphalt versus larger ones, which were much harder.  Trapped animals would inevitably attract predators and scavengers which could themselves get trapped leading to an ugly chain of entrapments.

Where did all of this asphalt come from?  Millions of years ago the area of Los Angeles was a sea bed and thick deposits of dead sea life accumulated, which later became oil.  The area was uplifted about 100,000 years ago and fractures led to some of the oil percolating to the surface.  The fossil record in the pits starts at about 40,000 years old and extends to about 10,000 years old when many species met their end (whether due to climate change after the Ice Age or by man, or both, is not known).

The museum had an impressive display of over 400+ dire wolf skulls.  It also had many complete skeletons, including a 13′ high Columbian Mammoth weighing (when alive) 15,000 pounds.  Wow.  We learned that it was a Sabertooth Cat, not Sabertooth Lion.  In additon there was a jaguar that was even larger than that!  Finally, horses were from North America but many migrated to Europe and Asia while the local ones died out — imagine how different history may have played out had the Indians had horses when the Europeans initially arrived!

The museum also had a cool room called a “fish tank” where we visitors could observe fossils being attended to and found by the mostly volunteer force.  They were currently at work on a mammoth named “Zed”, having found and assembled most of the skeleton.  There were also two movies, the first was a bit boring but the second had potential.  That is until a visitor decided to take a picture each time a new closed captioning line appeared — and he had it set to loudly click on each picture.  Michelle and Genetta couldn’t hear it but it practically ruined the movie for Addison and I.  People!

We picked up a few magnets from the gift store (I’ll need to make room for all of these new magnets!) and headed outside to see the other pits.  Honestly they weren’t as impressive as the lake in front.  It didn’t help that in addition to being stinky there was some litter in most of them (a product of being in the middle of a huge city, I suppose).  There were curious areas that were set aside by little square areas of fencing, though — turns out that some of the pits are very, very small, some less than the size of a coin.  They certainly don’t want people stepping into them, though.

Hopped back on the tour bus near an area of LACMA that had a huge number of light posts of various sizes arranged about.  I don’t know if it is art but it’s something alright.  We passed by the Writer’s Guild, Farmer’s Market (formed in the 1930s during the depression), CBS studios, Paramount studios (saw, but could not nab a picture of, the famous water tower), Nickelodeon studio where they film iCarly and Victorious, and the Capitol Records building (which I failed to snap a decent picture of either, grrrr).

Also saw a few other theaters like the Pantages and the Pacific, and learned a bit about Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre built in 1922 right about the time that word of the discoveries in Tut’s tomb were reaching the United States.

After heading back to the beginning of the tour in front of Grauman’s Chinese we decided not to hop back on to go to Sunset Strip (and the Rainbow) due to the late hour — no way the kids should be there on a Friday Night.  We were also worried that we’d miss the last tour bus and have to taxi it back.  I kinda regret that we missed out on the Rainbow (with such a rich rock history and the potential for a Lemmy sighting!) but it was for the best.

Instead we opted to walk along Hollywood Boulevard all the way to Vine Street to get a decent shot of the Capitol Records building as well as see John Wayne’s star.  On the way we got some drink at Popeye’s Chicken, Fanta Strawberry was incredible.  We then turned back west along Sunset Boulevard where the crowd was noticeably lighter (and a bit of a concern).  We passed a neat building called “Crossroads of the World” built in 1936 as well as Hollywood High School, home of many, many famous authors, actors (John Ritter, Fay Wray), and even some statesmen such as Warren Christopher.

Our goal was finally in sight.  At the beginning of the trip one of my goals was to eat at a In-N-Out Burger as I had heard much good about it (well, good for fast food).  We had seen many but for various reasons (not hungry, wrong side of the road, place was packed, what-have-you) we never stopped.  The place was packed yet again but I would not be deterred.  We finally got some food and the burgers were solid, though I didn’t care for the “secret sauce” too much.  The meat and cheese was good, though, and the toasted bun was excellent.  I’d say a tad above Char-Grill but not earth shattering.  On the way out of In-N-Out Burger we saw that the drive through line was around the building and onto the street.  Popular place!

Walked back to Hollywood Boulevard then to Highland Avenue and the hotel for some packing, blogging, and TV.  Big travel day tomorrow!