We're in California!!!

After spending the night at the "gateway to the Grand Canyon," we headed west for California. Tom has been here before on a trip with his family, but I've never been, and it (yes, the whole state) is one of the places I was the most excited about visiting on our trip.

We decided to hit California at L.A. and head north from there, but since the drive from Williams, AZ, to L.A. was more than seven hours and we got a somewhat late start on the morning, we decided to stay in Pasadena that night (at yet another Route 66 hotel!). That Saturday was mostly a driving day - with a visit to the most awesome Target location in the country (palm trees in the parking lot, mountains behind it? wow!). We got to Pasadena in time for dinner and a tiny bit of exploration by car, and we called it a night.

That Sunday, we got our first taste of L.A. traffic. It is terrifying. I will never complain about traffic or drivers in any other part of the country ever again. Thank goodness Tom was driving or we would've caused a 100-car pile-up on a 10-lane highway. Yeah, 10-lanes, totally congested, with maniac speed demons everywhere.

So we got into Hollywood in mid-morning and spent a few hours walking around on Hollywood Blvd. We saw the "Walk of the Stars" where celebrities' stars are in the ground, and we went to the famous Kodak theater. We also happened upon a very lively farmers market one block off the main drag. Hollywood Blvd. was a little grungier/dirtier than I'd expected - it always looks so glamorous when you see it on TV - but it was still really neat to be there! We could see the Hollywood sign in the hills from here, too.

Anybody else watch America's Next Great Restaurant? Here's Jamawn's restaurant!!

Hollywood Hills sign in the distance

A sampling of the stars we saw:

And a few more personal signatures & footprints (click for larger view):

Captain Jack Sparrow taking a Starbucks/ciggie break:

From Hollywood, we drove down Santa Monica Blvd. to Beverly Hills and the famous Rodeo Drive. We parked (valet was the only option), and checked out the ritzy area. Every store was designer, and we could just feel the money oozing on this street! We certainly weren't there to do serious shopping, so it was fun to just look around at the glamor for a bit.

After walking around Rodeo Drive, we decided to drive down a few streets to see how the rich & famous live. The houses here are gigantic and gorgeous! We opted against taking an organized tour of celebrity homes here - driving around the neighborhoods ourselves was plenty.

We stayed in Culver City that night (home of many big film companies including Sony Pictures), so we decided it was only fitting to see a movie in the film capital of the west. We had a great time exploring Hollywood and Beverly Hills, but we were glad to leave the worst of the L.A. traffic behind!

Up next: Venice Beach and Santa Monica Beach in Southern Cali