Tuesday, July 15th - Hollywood and Venice Beach

The first part of today we spent in Hollywood checking out a few of the main attractions on Hollywood Blvd. We finally found a good location to see the Hollywood sign and took a few pictures, then parked near Grauman's Chinese Theatre and got out to wander up and down Hollywood Blvd to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame with the many stars on the sidewalk. We checked out several of the shops along the way. Several blocks down, we even saw an argument up ahead; that's when we decided to cross the street. Within minutes there was a police car there to calm things down. We saw the outside of the Kodak Theatre; tours are available, but we'll have to wait for when we have more time. We considered going on a Hollywood stars tour for a bit .. but in the end, have left that to a future trip to LA - as our time here is limited and we would rather spend it at the beach than on a bus.

So we started making our way back to Santa Monica beach area. Along the way, found an oil change place on Melrose, so stopped for a "10 minute" (more like 45 minutes!) oil change for Felix (the Focus). Then a slight detour to drive through Beverly Hills and up Rodeo drive. The grandeur of the expensive shops! Would be fun to wander around and look someday. Probably not much more than that .. but it's still fun to look!

Finally we arrived at Santa Monica beach, parked in the same lot we did on Sunday. We threw our rollerblades on and skated up to the Santa Monica Pier - didn't go up to the Pacific Park though (maybe another day?). Then we skated south along the boardwalk, all the way to Venice Beach. Okay, on the map it doesn't look far at all. There goes our hopes of skating all the way to Redondo Beach. Maybe if we had a whole day, but a few hours is just not enough time!

At Venice Beach there's many shops along the boardwalk, so of course we took a peak in many of them. It's pretty cool because we were able to skate right in with all our beach stuff (Derek was carrying our beach bag and I had our boogie board). We skated by Muscle Beach and then decided to stop and check out the waves at Venice Beach. So the flip flops came out and we settled onto the beach. Again, we took turns trying to catch the perfect wave. What a blast! So much fun when the wave takes you for a ride right up to the shore and then rolls you over a couple times. Of course by then the undercurrent is trying to pull you back out again, but as if that's not enough - another wave rolls in and splashes right over your head! I love the ocean!

We stayed till the sun was starting to set, then packed up, tried to remove sand and donned our blades once again. We skated back to Santa Monica - quicker this time as many of the shops at Venice Beach were closing for the night.

I still needed to go to Hard Rock cafe for my pin, so we drove to Universal City (CityWalk) and had supper at Hard Rock cafe. We also explored CityWalk and did a little shopping. Universal is another thing I'd love to do - have to come back and spend a couple days at Universal (the theme park). Derek says the Spiderman rollercoaster is at this Universal. (We went to Universal in Florida a few years ago and had a great time, especially on the Hulk rollercoaster!).

Back to the hotel late, and spent a little time packing up and getting organized, as tomorrow we have to be moving out. Too bad - as it's been nice staying in 1 place for a few days and it's been a nice hotel (in Sherman Oaks, not Encino!). And also because there is so many things yet to see and do in LA (and surrounding areas). But we figure it'll take at least 4 days to drive home, and we got to be back to work on Monday. That'll be tough! ;-)

Wednesday we hope to make it back to beach even for a few hours before we have to leave (pushing our time limits a bit here) then head out .. Vegas is 4 hours away, should be there by tonight. Then Salt Lake City is along the way home, and then we overlap into familiar territory when we reach Montana.

Time to rock and roll .. gotta get moving and see what we can do yet before heading back east!