Los Angeles  House of Lange Trip Report - Day 4

Sunday, October 26th 2008

Sunday would be our final day for sight seeing in LA, so we got off to an early start and headed to Santa Monica and Venice Beach::

Fortunately, very few LA residents rise before noon on Sunday, so there wasn't the bumper to bumper traffic one would normally see on LA highways. Which meant I got an opportunity to let the Mercedes "stretch its legs" a bit, which was fun.

Santa Monica is only about 20 miles from Hollywood, so we made it to Venice Beach in no time.

 

 

We took a stroll on the famous Ocean Front Walk of Venice Beach:

Back in my high school and college days, I was a serious "gym rat" and always dreamed of visiting Muscle Beach - a favorite hangout of Arnold Schwarzenegger during his competitive bodybuilding days:  

Next to the Muscle Beach gym area, there's a basketball court were some guys were shooting some hoops: 

As we continued on our walk, we saw many unusual sights, as you might imagine.  Have you ever been to the Venice Beach "Freak Show?"  They have their own two-headed turtle: 

There's no better place to people watch than on Venice Beach - you see many oddities:

After our stroll on Ocean Front Walk, we went for a walk on the beach:

I'm such a romantic.  :D  :D

We had a really nice time at Venice Beach.  We then headed a short distance from the beach to another famous locale to the bodybuilding community - Gold's Gym :

Technically speaking, while the Santa Monica Gold's Gym is the first gym that Joe Gold opened and has been home to just about every major bodybuilding competitor who ever lived, the original Gold's Gym was a smaller facility elsewhere in Santa Monica.  They've been in this location for about 25 years.

By this point, Karen was ready to take over driving the Mercedes:

Our next destination was to see the Olympics Stadium in LA - Karen is a huge fan of the Olympics, so this is something she really had been looking forward to:

Swimming and diving events are her favorite in the Olympics, as she used to compete in both swimming and diving:

At this point, it was time to head back to Hollywood:

I took this shot of the Staples Center sports arena for my son who is a big sports fan:

Driving through downtown LA:

We went back to Hollywood Blvd. so we could continue our tour of the Hollywood Walk of Fame:

The Guiness World of Records and the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Odditorium are right next to one another on Hollywood Blvd:

The Hollywood Wax Museum is almost directly across the street:

As we were walking along, a film crew burst out of a restaurant and followed two girls...they appeared to be filming a "reality" show but I'm not sure which one:

This time on our walk, we spotted some of our more contemporary favorite "stars":

One for my Dad. :)

 

We finally made it up Hollywood Blvd to the Kodak Theater (home of the Academy Awards) and the Mann Chinese Theater right next door:

We had fun looking at the hand and footprints of the stars honored at the Mann Chinese Theater:

We went inside the Kodak Theater:

When we came out of the Kodak Theater we were approached by "Master Chief" from the HALO series of video games.  Recognizing me as the undisputed grand champion of HALO, he insisted on getting a photo with me.  Who am I to say no to Master Chief?  :D  :D:  

At this point, Karen and I were pretty beat from another non-stop sight seeing day, and it was nearly time to take the Mercedes back to the hotel, so we headed back to the Sunset Tower - it's such an unmistakable landmark on Sunset Blvd.:

The next morning we packed for the flight back home to Dayton.  Karen and I had both had a fabulous time...I caught her looking at houses for sale in the LA Times...heh.  We checked out and met the car taking us back to LAX.  As it turns out, our driver that day had been the personal driver to Aaron Spelling for 14 years, right up to the day he died.  "We've got some time before you need to be to the airport...would you like to see Aaron Spelling's house?"  "SURE!!!!" Karen and I responded in unison.  He drove us through Beverly Hills on the way to Aaron Spelling's mansion...when we were stopped at a light Sharon Stone walked by our car to get in her Porsche SUV...she smiled politely at us.  Here's the entrance to Aaron Spelling's home:

Just down the street is the Playboy Mansion's entrance:

Judging by all the food service trucks parked outside Hef's place, he was going to be throwing one heckuva party that night.  "Who has a party on Monday night??" I said out loud.  Our driver responded, "They have a party practically every night of the week at the Playboy Mansion." 

After our tour of celebrity mansions, our driver took us to LAX, and we flew back to good old Dayton, OH.  Karen and I both really enjoyed out time in LA - we'll be California Dreamin' until we get to go again.  :)

 

 *All text and images contained in this review are the original work of the author, John B. Holbrook, II and are copyright protected. Use of any of the information or images without the permission of the author is prohibited.

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