Day 5:  LA Day 2-Hollywood! 

We got up for a neat outdoor continental breakfast in this open air motel--there was a SoCal interior courtyard where we ate out breakfast before moving over to our most anticipated hotel stays: The Farmer's Daughter--a boutique hotel in West Hollywood that was pure LA--right down to the vintage clothing sold in the gift shop--we loved it.  Perfect recommendation from our friend Wendy!

We dropped our car there and hopped on the Starline Tour that we arranged to see the sites around Hollywood--we were able to pick up the double decker bus right across the street from our hotel. We hopped on, plugged in our headphones and went on our way--Al and Anna sat on the top in the sun and MG and Mom sat on the first floor.  We rode through several stops before getting off at Grauman's Chinese Theatre--the heart of Hollywood--including the Walk of Fame--once off, the fist star we stepped was that of Donal Trump--a funny British lady next to us really enjoyed teasing us about being polite to the star of our "next president"!  

We walked around, saw many stars, and then made our way into the Chinese Theatre--very cool to see handprints, foot prints and messages of a lot of classic actors and some new ones...we loved all of this.  We even stopped to see Madame Tussand's Wax Museum--with a wax figure of Johnny Depp right outside--it creeped us out how lifelike it was...there was also antoher Stacey there who was the greeter and loved to tell us all the cool things about living in LA--she was great-she even convinced us to go to In And Out Burger, an extremely popular local burger joint down the street a bit.  We took her up on that and squeezed into the restaurant with about 100 other people to get some milkshakes and cheese and bacon covered "animal fries"--since we could not sit in the restaurant with all the tables taken and about 60 people standing and waiting, we enjoyed our food across the street on a wall under some shade trees while the police were arresting a few young kids for whatever they did! 

We hopped back on the bus for a trip to Rodeo Drive-the heart of expense in Beverly Hills, with high end shops and high end cars.  Many of the shops only take appointments for shopping.  It was fun to walk this street to see the beautiful things.  

On the way back Al sat on the top of the bus again and by the end of the two days in SoCal, was pretty much a few shades darker!  

We were dropped off back at our hotel for a little swimming and enjoyment of the Farmer's Daughter hotel--with an outdoor restaraunt, lounge area, people smoking medical marijuana and BBQ going in the parking lot, we really felt like we were in LA!  We swam some in the pool to cool down from the day--it was hot, 110, with little breeze in the valley between the mountains around us.  Feeling refreshed, we jumped into the car to see the Griffith Observatory--a famous and beautiful landmark in the Hollywood hills with a giant telescope, planetarium and several telescopes brought out for the public to enjoy each night it is open.  After a long drive to the hill to climb up to the place, we bailed out and went back to the hotel as the traffic was incredible...hundreds of cars in line to get up there--apparently there was a Greek play going on in the park, and the observatory is much more popular now with all of the photos of Pluto being sent back to earth--it was sad, but we had to cut our losses.  If we did not leave the line and take a U turn to head home, it would not have been a very enjoyable evening waiting in long lines of people to see things at the observatory and traffic to get in and out.  We went back to the hotel and then walked down the street to collect some goodies at Trader Joe's so the girls could relax and watch some TV and Mom and Dad could get a nice drink in the restarant--it was the right move! 

What a great day and night...we liked LA a lot--a cool, relaxed feel, tons of diversity, and really nice people--we will be sad to see it go tomorrow, but we are looking forward to driving the famed California Route One!

Starting off with a nice outdoor breakfast

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The girls got a lesson in capitalism when they saw all these goodies in our very own hotel room--when then saw how much it cost, they could not bear to look at it, so they covered it up! 

Old Cigarette Machine now used to sell small pieces of artwork! 

Some new shades from the "Everything is $5 Store Huge Sale that ends at 1:30!!!!' 

Pretty crazy at In and Out Burger