As I write about L.A. we are still here (although I’m now posting this 2 weeks later!) and I am sat at the picnic bench on our site looking out to sea. I’m sure you all really want to know this on the day that Hurricane Gonzalo blew through England. Now finally finishing this a week later from another sunny picnic bench – this one in Vegas.

But back to LA. John and I last visited 12 years ago and for reasons we can’t now remember didn’t think much of it. I think it was one of those ‘freak weather’ times when it did nothing but rain for a whole week so we packed up and left town and headed to Vegas. The kids were desperate to visit L.A. and even though we had told them there would be no Disney or Universal Studios they still wanted to come. Think in their minds it would be the Skateboarding Mecca!

Our experience this time could not have been more different. We absolutely loved it. The sun shone every day. Our campsite on Dockweiler Beach (recommended by Lindsay and just 5 minutes down the road from her house in Manhattan Beach) was on the beach. Like step outside of our door and onto the sand ‘on the beach’. We had thought we would stay for 3 nights and ended up here for 6.

We arrived on Monday 20^th October early evening having visited Skate Lab on our way into town. The traffic is quite unbelievable. Some of the worst driving we have ever experienced and the congestion is incredible. So we were glad we had hired a car so Frankie could stay safely parked up on the beach while we took our lives into our hands following the crazy Sat Nav instructions around town. (Having served us very well so far, arriving in La La Land seemed to send the sat nav crazy and we did more ‘legal U-turns’ in those 6 days than we’ve done so far in 5 months of driving. She seemed to be playing some sort of mind games with us, a terrifying game of chicken where she only told us of exits as we were passing them causing us to either throw ourselves across lanes of traffic or continue and make a ‘legal U-turn’!!! All very annoying!)

We were delighted with the campsite and the beach just in front of us was straight out of Baywatch and every American movie we’ve ever seen involving beach parties, fire pits, cycle lanes full of beautiful people jogging, cycling etc. past us at all times of day and night, and most exciting of all our very own lifeguard hut and red-trunked lifeguards!!

    

 

Tuesday we used the fantastically flat bike path and cycled 8 miles south through Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and down to Redondo Beach. We couldn’t believe our luck that the weather was sooooo good. So spent the day on the beach, swimming in the sea and burying each other! Then cycled 8 miles back, which seemed a little harder although that may have been down to the frozen margaritas! That night we had a fire on the beach, which was fantastic. Just as the kids were imagining LA apparently and much more the experience we were after!!

      

Wednesday we headed out in our hire car to ‘do’ some museums. A few people had tipped us off that the Peterson Automotive Museum was something quite special. Not only for petrol heads like John but also being a very cool cultural history of all things pertaining to the USA road trip – seemed sort of relevant!! We parked up and hunted for it for ages. Discovering a part of the Berlin Wall on our way. The Wall Project has 5 original segments from the Berlin Wall and 5 more painted by established and emerging artists in memory of the 20^th Anniversary of it being torn down on 8^th November this year.

  

Sadly when we did eventually find the car museum it was behind a load of hoarding as it is being renovated. John pressed his nose up against the glass and got a tantalising glimpse of the treasures inside and we found one vehicle parked outside – but that was all!! (Another one to add to our list of things to do when we do this again!!).

  

However, we were more successful in seeing Endeavour up close and personal. The night security man at our campsite Javier who was super friendly and very helpful told us we HAD to see this. He was very persuasive and when I heard him telling some other campers arriving a few nights later I guessed he must have some personal connection to it. Turns out he did.

So the story of Endeavour is that LA was selected by NASA to house the space shuttle when it was retired in 2011. It was built here in California to replace Challenger when it explored during take off in 1986, so was fitting it came back here.   It completed 25 missions, including several to International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope and was in space for 299 days in total. It arrived in LA on the back of a Jumbo Jet, which seems sad enough for what was once the ‘Jewel of the Fleet’ for NASA. But then it was towed through 17 miles through the streets of LA. (Here’s where Javier comes in!). 1.5 million people lined the streets to watch it inch its way towards the California Science Centre. This shuttle that used to travel at 17,000mph now moved at 2mph past shops and houses with the whole route at a total stand still. 400 trees had to be cut down to allow it to pass through. What an incredible sight that must have been!!! No wonder Javier was so excited about it!

The whole exhibition was incredible (let alone the rest of the free museum with 4 floors of fantastic interpretative stuff that the kids loved – science lesson tick!!) with displays and videos of all things space including a rather gross demonstration of how astronauts go to the toilet in space something I had never considered before!

          

Just over the road from the museum was the Olympic Stadium from 1984 which we whizzed past, well crawled slowly past in the traffic on our way out of town to Anaheim to watch the LA Lakers. Basketball obviously was one of those sports we had to experience and I can honestly say I would choose Basketball over Baseball any day of the week. Back in Toronto you may recall we spent a rather dull afternoon watching the Blue Jays while consuming our body weight in fast food. This was a whole different ball game (pardon the pun!). The Laker Girls were no small part of the fun. Paula Abdul was picked up by the Jacksons while performing as a Laker Girl and it seems a highly sought after prize to be picked to be on the squad. The only thing I have to compare them to are the LV Girls who ‘perform’ during the Harlequins rugby matches we attend with our season tickets back home. These girls are NOTHING like them!! They definitely earned their spots performing at least 10 routines during the fast moving match. And between times they sat in a perfect line (left legs crossed over right and left hands over right) watching the match, chanting along, jumping up and dancing every time the Lakers scored – I was exhausted just watching them!! But the sport itself was great too. Very fast moving, high scoring, seriously impressive speed and agility for men sooooooo tall. We all loved all the songs, chanting, dancing, Kiss Cam which hilariously saw 2 old dears who’d never met having a snog and the Dance Off which was won hands down by an 8 year old throwing some serious shapes! We were on the big screen but I couldn’t get to my camera quick enough to record it – but the kids were chuffed. But the highlight for us all was ‘Organ Dude’. Whoever and wherever he was his tunes and chants were absolutely priceless.

      

 

Thursday we were back in the hire car and headed to Hollywood!! We knew this would be a full on day of being a tourist and the accompanying expenditure and harassment totally lived up to that expectation. We walked the Walk of Fame with Julie Andrews being the highlight for Charlie and I. Charlie searched for Johnny Depp’s star but was told that he had turned down a star as they have to pay $15000 of their own money for it and he had decided to give the money to charity rather than boosting his ego. This got Charlie thinking and he’s decided he will definitely do the same when they offer him a star after he wins his Oscar a few years from now. (Before anyone asks I have already confirmed that it will be ME who will be his ‘plus one’ for the Oscars Ceremony so back off people!!).

            

We fought our way past endless ‘characters’ hanging around Grumman’s Chinese Theatre (I think we spotted Spiderman, Captain Jack Sparrow, Mickey Mouse and Iron Man to name but a few) to stand in the footsteps of the select few immortalised in concrete there. Interesting to see who they still have ‘on display’ (as I’m assuming they must ‘lift’ some of them and replace them with others from time to time!). Clark Gable is still there. Marilyn Monroe obviously. Jean Marlow. Gene Kelly. Then Daniel Radcliffe etc. all from the Harry Potter films. And most exciting of all Johnny Depp, which pleased Charlie greatly.  Think what is always a crazy part of town was made worse by the fact there were thousands of people lined up ready to watch Taylor Swift who was due to perform there that night – we didn’t join the queue!!

      

We succumbed to the tour of the homes of the Hollywood Stars on the promise that we would see Johnny Depp’s house. Actually it turned out to be a very quick and easy way to see a load of stuff without too much grief. Absolutely sure that most of the houses that were pointed out to us were just the homes of the 95% of residents of Beverley Hills that ARNE’T celebrities. I quite understand the whole “location, location, location” thing but the whole town is 4 sq. miles and these houses are practically on top of each other! But who were we to argue. (Turns out Johnny Depp ‘lives’ up in the Hollywood hills so we didn’t get to see his ‘house’ causing much heartbreak in one small child that was only eased with the purchase of a $16 tile with Johnny Depp’s star from the Walk of Fame – which as previously mentioned he doesn’t even have – proving again the magic of a tourist trap!!).

        

Interesting information we retained from our tour included the fact that Beverley Hills is an independent city, even having it’s own mayor. This is because it has it’s own water supply. Years ago LA forced all the little cities in the area to come under the umbrella of LA by threatening to cut off their water supply. So Beverley Hills sorted out their own and therefore managed to stay independent – I like that! Also that the Hollywood sign was initially a PR stunt by a housing development and also included the word ‘Homes’ after it. The sign stayed up there and become so intrinsically linked with the city that when it showed signs of decay Alice Cooper (yep the aged rocker of smudged eye make up fame) said he would pay for the upkeep of one letter and encouraged other stars to do the same. But even more pleasing is that now when it needs a paint job they use white scaffolding and the painters have to wear white overalls and hats so they blend in and can’t be seen from town – like that a lot! My favourite thing as we passed out of the Hollywood madness was a sign I saw outside a print shop. Included on their billboard of services and prices was a cost for ‘Script Copy’ – only in LA!!

Headed down to LA Live and the Staples Centre that night to watch the LA Kings in action (yep we are racing through our list of US sporting events here). So Ice Hockey this time. Another crazily fast paced game this time it appeared there would be no bikini clad dancing girls but that the main source of entertainment came from the fights!! The kids loved it all obviously. The audience demographic fascinated me. In front of us was a family with 2 tiny kids and 2 sets of grandparents in tow. A couple next to us so obviously on a first date. Groups of teenagers. It was great to see. The Kings were the Stanley cup winners last season and the kids have now adopted them as their Hockey team (sorry Norb!!). They chose their t-shirts as we went in Carter, number 77 and Kopitar, number 11. They both scored which was very considerate of them as it stopped any arguments between the kids. As I said the fights were the highlight of the action but there was the same razzamatazz to accompany the match. Similar to the Basketball with Dance Cam etc. but with the addition of Workout cam where the camera scanned through eh crowd and people flexed their muscles. Priceless. Also we were delighted to hear Organ Dude again. Playing a few familiar tunes ‘da da da da da da – charge!!’ etc. L.A. Kings won and the evening ended not with Man of the Match like in the UK but with ‘Who Got it Done’ – nice!

    

Friday we had a day on the beach. Well the sun was shining and we were parked on the beach so it seemed rude not to. Which takes us back to when I started writing this as that hurricane blew through the UK. But you don’t want to hear about that!! We had been invited that night to have supper with Lindsay and her fiancée Brandon at their place just along from us in Manhattan Beach. Brandon’s mum Cindy and his brother Anthony and his girlfriend Sarah were there too and Lindsay’s Aunt Debbie and Uncle Jack. The kids were delighted to meet Chevy who even showed us his Halloween costume and were thrilled to surf the channels on their enormous TV! Lindsay and Brandon were lovely hosts and we had a really fun evening. Our favourite quote of the evening was “I just love corn nuts. They keep me busy.” Anyone who wants the uncensored version should email me direct. But for the purposes of this blog we had a lovely evening with lovely people watching the sun go down over Manhattan Beach enjoying good food and wine!

Saturday a little the worse for wear we got back on our bikes again and headed north this time to Venice Beach. Skateboards strapped onto our backs we delivered the kids to the Skateboard haven they were looking for. This place is absolutely as crazy as it is billed. The kids didn’t bat an eyelid but mine were out on storks at some of the sights and I don’t shock easily as I’m sure most of you know…. We spent most of our time at the skate park on the beachfront. We arrived there and it was completely full of what must have been professional boarders. And a huge crowd of people just hanging off the railings observing. I was intimidated but not the kids. The ‘star’ of the park appeared to be a young man who due to his deep tan and very defined six pack and the fact that he boarded in bare feet led us to believe he probably could handle a surf board fairly well too. Despite this the kids dutifully strapped on their knee and elbow pads and fastened their crash helmets and got right in there. I truly do not know where they are getting their confidence. If that had been me I would have crawled away with my tail between my legs. But no. There went our brave boys and we could not have been more proud of their few hours pushing themselves round the park while avoiding the pros who flew through the air around them.

            

Cycled home, as the sun set over the beach and every single one of the hundreds of firepits surrounded by parties of people, thinking what an amazing place this must be to live. Always warm and with all this on your doorstep we have loved our time here in LA.