Los Angeles, Hollywood, and area (first of multiple posts)

We just left the Los Angeles area.  We arrived last Saturday.  Our RV camp was north of town, in an area called Santa Clarita and Valencia.  It's about 30 minutes (depending on traffic) north of LA.  Beth's sister Lynn lives with a friend (Ronda) in the town of Glendale, which is on the outskirts of Hollywood and squeezed between Burbank and Pasadena.

Aunt Lynn and Ronda were our local contacts and they were excellent tour guides.  It rained all day Sunday so that gave us some much-needed down time in the RV.  On Monday we hit the tourist trail, starting with downtown Hollywood and the Kodak Theatre, where a number of red carpet movie premieres have been held over the years.  We saw the famous Walk of Fame (Sidewalk of Stars) and Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

We were impressed that the celebrities didn't have to be human to get their signatures outside of Grauman's.  Here's Sylvester Stallone (from Rocky fame).

 Here are the main characters from Harry Potter.

 Roy Rogers, his horse and gun!

 Some of the Star Wars characters.

 There were lots of "celebrities" available to have their picture taken (for a tip).  Matthew's favorite, from the video game.

Here's another celebrity we found.  We didn't have to give him a tip to have our picture taken with him!

We had a great lunch at Canter's Deli on Fairfax.  As an example of LA fusion, in addition to pastrami sandwiches they were pushing a book about the band Guns and Roses.  During their fame, the band used to hang out at Canter's (open 24 hours) and there were many pictures of Slash (lead guitar) and the band in their favorite booth.

Lynn gave us the full tour - we drove on Sunset Strip. through Bel Air and Beverly Hills.  And we saw the famous Hollywood sign, from multiple angles.  The first is from the Kodak Theatre.

 This is with some Hollywood starlets (Beth from "Happy Housewives from Ohio" and Lynn from "Fresh Tourguide from Glendale").

 

Of  course our tour was not all flash and glamor. We visited the La Brea tar pits, an area close to the downtown where hundreds of thousands of bones have been found from the ice age and more recently.

This is an active pit and we saw bubbles of gas coming up.  The display contains a wall of 400 wolf skulls, less than half of all the wolf skulls that have been found here.

We ended the day by visiting the pier at Santa Monica.  This is the place where the historic Route 66 ends, so it was a fitting wrap up to our stops at Holbrook, Winslow, and Barstow.

 Check out the police cruiser (pick up truck, actually) that was parked at the end of the pier.  Where else but in Southern California would a police car carry a surfboard?