A little Hollywierd and a Santa Monica sunset

Joan under the Hollywood Sign

Our last day in L.A was our busiest. When we were up and out I thought Joan would like to get up and close with the famous Hollywood sign. The fact is you can’t get too close to the sign unless you are willing to hike, which we weren’t today, but I remembered a spot in the Hollywood Hills where you could get pretty close to it.

So with help from OnStar we negotiated a windy, narrow road in the Hollywood Hills to arrive at the spot where we could get a nice picture of Joan standing under the sign. You can tell the local residents don’t really appreciate all of the tourists who stop and park to take photos, but after seeing the beautiful homes and views I don’t feel too sorry for them.

Some of those old homes are built right up to the road and people now park on the narrow road making it impossible for two cars to pass at the same time.

Joan at Grauman's Chinese Theater

With the Hollywood sign photos taken we headed down the hill so I could show Joan the former Grauman’s Chinese Theater. The first parking lot I pulled into wanted $15 to park so I politely told the guy he was crazy and I pulled out and found a free spot about .1-mile from the famous Walk of Fame and Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. So there Mr. $15 parking spot.

As usual the famous city block was crowded with street performers, wierdos, tour operators and tourists. We spent about 45 minutes walking the area and then headed back to the car.

From there we drove a few miles to the famous La Brea Tar Pits. As most of the readers of this blog know Joan is a former high school science teacher and while she is retired her interest in all things science is quite alive.

When I went to the tar pits when I was a boy they were just some bubbling pits in an unusual, and not very attractive downtown park. My most enduring memory of them was the pungent odor of asphalt and tar.

Today, there is a beautiful museum, a gift of a Mr. George Page, and thousands of exhibits, including a working lab called the “Fishbowl” where you can stand and watch through glass the process of cleaning fossil bones of the thick tar until the fossils have been completely cleaned and restored.

Maybe not the best representation of the Walk of Fame

Some of the technicians behind the glass were working on some extremely small pieces and were meticulously separating them into separate piles. From the outside it looked like they were sorting grains of sand. Joan and I both agreed we would never have the patience for that type of work.

On the grounds there are two working pits where volunteers and paid staff are continuing their search for more Ice Age fossils. There were several folks working on one of the sites when we were there.

Several school buses had dropped off students for a field trip and one of the things I noticed was that the bus drivers for the schools had neat, clean uniforms which I thought were a great idea.

The students were by and large well behaved and supervised, but even so Joan said it didn’t make her miss her former career even a little.

Joan and one of her best (extinct) friends

We spent nearly four hours at the museum and when we had exhausted every exhibit and read every historical and scientific panel we left.

Somewhere in between we ate out meager lunch on picnic tables where flocks of sea gulls hovered around waiting for any morsel of food to be dropped. Someone left behind an opened bag of chips and the birds took turns stealing the bag from each other and then doing their best to rip open the package.

About 2:35 p.m. we headed tour final destination for the day – the Santa Monica Pier. The pier is the location of a small amusement park, one I used to go to when I was a teenager.

The winds were blowing and the temperatures were in the low 50s, but we decided to walk the pier anyway, but dressed as if we were headed out to blow snow in Michigan.

Cleaning tar off fossils is not clean work

After walking the pier we stopped at Bubba Gump Shrimp for dinner and then headed back to our hotel room after a very full day. Before we left we saw one of those beautiful Pacific Ocean sunsets that are only possible on the west coast.

On the way to the pier the traffic heading downtown Los Angeles was jammed about 3 p.m. Three hours later when we headed home it was still jammed and it took us 90 minutes to drive just 24 miles back to our room.

Traffic and the hassle of it is probably the number 1 reason I would never move back to California. There are very few times when traffic isn’t clogged and moving slowly even on freeways with five lanes in each direction.

I was born here, I was raised here, but I would never come back and live here. Traffic is at the top of the list for reasons why.

Joan at the famous pier

A few lingering notes from yesterday. It seems like any time we stay in a hotel they always leave complimentary soap, shampoo and hair conditioner on the sink.

So when I got ready to take a shower Thursday morning I grabbed the two bottles of shampoo and conditioner and used them in the shower. After Joan finished her shower she asked if I had used both bottles on my hair.

I said, “Yes.”

“Then you used body lotion on your hair because one of the bottles is body lotion.” My hair was flying all over the place so I had to use a large quantity of hair spray to hold it down yesterday. Guess I should read the labels before I head to the shower.

You may have heard this on the news, but there is a huge story going on here in Los Angeles involving a fired police officer who is hell bent on exacting revenge on his former police officer co-workers. The city is pretty uptight right now and police have already shot to innocent folks who were simply driving a car matching the description of the suspect’s.

Enjoying a Pacific sunset

After checking Encino maps again I believe that I missed my old neighborhood. Tomorrow morning on our way out of LA I’m going to check the neighborhood one last time and see if I can find the first real house I lived in.

My first real home, as I’m told, was actually a garage apartment behind a house that was owned by my grandparents and occupied by my aunt and uncle. I’ll report back.

I know I said I wasn’t going to blog every day, but there is not much else going on here at night and so writing is a good way to spend the time.

One of the things we noticed in the audience selection process at the Jay Leno show yesterday was that the front row of seats were taped off when we entered. We were the first ones there, but were seated in the second row, which was fine and didn’t bother us at all.

Lots of tail lights

The front row seats were taped off and later a group of hip young well-dressed people were ushered in to fill in the front rows. Obviously, the show wants an image of being hip with young folks and I assume they hand selected these folks from the lines of people waiting to get into the show.

It certainly makes sense from a marketing stand point considering the competition that Jay has from other shows at the same time. They don’t want old fogeys like me showing up as the first folks people see when they tune in.