Advertisement
After being stuck for a long time in crazy LA traffic, we decided to chill with the still yesterday morning and head out at around noon to a few key locations that we wanted to see. Avoiding rush hour made the roads quieter but it was still quite hectic and it was really revealing how my expectations of this part was so different to its true appearance. I always imagined all around LA and Hollywood in particular, to be glitzy and glamorous with just a small selection of hidden run down locations that aren't quite so aesthetically pleasing.
Obviously we have only seen a small percentage of areas mostly off of the highway but it almost seems quite the opposite, I guess with every largely populated area in the world there is always the sharp contrast of apparent wealth and stark poverty mangled together to form "society". I've lost count of the amount of times I've been asked for "a spare dollar" or passed groups of forlorn homeless people sparked out on benches looking like they wont be here for long. Of course in perspective, this is nothing compared to some war torn areas in the world but
it's still quite a humbling experience. I don't think of my self as well off, but of course I am walking to a new Jeep in my clean clothes heading back to an air conditioned hotel room on holiday which is probably a reality that these people could only dream of sat in the litter on the side of the street.
However I digress, this all did a very quick turn around as soon as soon as you head a little south to the insanely rich population that reside either in "the Hills" or on the coast.
Our first stop was the obligatory Hollywood boulevard walk of fame, 15 blocks of stars on the street depicting various actors, actresses and characters from film dating back in the last 100 years. We found this a bit disappointing so headed straight to the epic Chinese hotel with the hand and footprints of countless stars moulded into concrete blocks on the floor. This was really cool as some of them dated back to the 40's as an almost timeless reminder of how a moment can be captured and felt for all that time. It reminded me of
the petroglyph's in the old ruins on the painted desert back in Arizona and it ironically shows how some things haven't changed in the last couple of 1000 years. It also showed that some actors that appear large and dominating on screen, actually have really small feet!!!
Being on this trip, we had to visit the end point of the route 66 which has actually changed location a few times but has settled in its resting place on the most westerly point of the track halfway down the pier at Santa Monica. I think its original end point was further up at an intersection between 2 roads with a small plaque that we couldn't find. This city quite appealed to me and seems they have a strong consciousness of the environment and using sustainable forms of energy. The car park we went to solely relied on solar energy and recycled water and we saw many cops zooming around on converted golf buggies instead of gas guzzling 3 litre dodge vehicles!
We wanted to stay here for a bit longer, have a better look at the amazing beach that stretched for miles and the old
fairground rides but we had a 2 hour drive down the coast for a gondola ride around the harbour at Newport beach. This was very relaxing and we got to chill in the front of the boat drinking non alcoholic cider and munching on cheese, biscuits and salami which they pre prepared. Our gondola driver was a guy called Stephan who was very polite and even serenaded us with an awesome Italian song under a bridge where the acoustics were spot on. This area of the coast really is like something out of the O.C. that cheesy American drama from about 10 years ago, with the 3 million dollar beach houses with their own personal yacht parked outside. Stephan even told us that although that show was based mainly further south at Laguna beach, It covered all these parts of Orange County.
After a lovely evening we then made our way back to Anaheim for our last night here before heading to Long beach.
Included with this ultra long post is a debatable map I created on here that shows a rough depiction of our route since Chicago as the crow flies.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.088s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0434s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Tony Austin
non-member comment
The last few
I've definitely the last few entries from Grand Canyon onwards, especially the Santa Monica comments and the 'park bench' observations: the United States is a very divided country in terms of the haves and have-nots, that's for sure. Any good "Back to the Future" points? It's 25 years since it came out this week! BTW, I've just seen some trailers/reviews of the latest Terminator film: contractual obligation nothingy-nightmare I think. Only see it if you're a really die-hard hard-core fan! Anyway, I'll enjoy listening to your further stories of the trip when we meet in person!