So we left San Diego yesterday, but not before checking out a few other places I'd had on my list of things to do.
1) Mt. Soledad - as promised, the views were 360 degrees and stunning. Apparently it is a great place to watch the sunset but we arrived in San Diego after sunset on Tuesday and clouds covered the sky before sunset on Wednesday so we had to do with morning sun and blue skies. I guess it was turned into a Veteran's Memorial as there is a giant cross on top and there was a lot of controversy about having a religious symbol on government property when there is supposed to be a separation between church and state.
2) Sunny Jim's Cave - this is a sea cave that you can access from land. Most of them are only accessible by sea but in the early 1900s, two Chinese men dug a tunnel through to this cave. Later, stairs were added so that people can access this tunnel through the Cave Store. There were apparently 145 stairs and the ceilings were quite low in parts but it was very interesting.
We'd also planned on taking a quick stop off at the Scripps Pier but couldn't find it in our GPS so decided against it. Not realizing how long we'd spend at our other stops, I had also considered stopping at San Juan Capistrano Mission which is apparently a 200 year old Mission that has been well maintained and full of history of how the European settlers attempted to "educate" the natives. I was disappointed to miss it but we just don't have time to do everything!
We headed to Long Beach to pick up Robert's parents and headed on into LA where we checked into hotel #1. You see, Robert was trying to book a hotel near Universal Studios but ended up with a hotel near USC (University of Southern California) which is nowhere near our intended destination. We decided to make the best of it though and used it as our home base for our Hollywood touring.
We were exhausted yesterday and considered just grabbing a bite to eat and hang out at the hotel pool. We figured if we headed to Hollywood last night then we could just do the sign and the beach today for Duncan's birthday. Boy were we glad we did. As we walked down Hollywood Boulevard from where we parked our car, we stumbled across the Hollywood Premiere for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Our vision was limited as there was quite a crowd and we'd arrived rather late, but we got to see Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp from a fairly close range and Geoffrey Rush and one of the actresses in the movie were walking the red carpet.
After grabbing some dinner and walking a little more along the Walk of Fame, we ended up at Grauman's Chinese Theatre just before their last tour of the evening so we decided to head on in. What a gorgeous venue! It was quite interesting and just happened to be their 90th anniversary. Our tour guide told us how small Rita Hayworth's feet were when she showed us her black dress from "Gilda" but Danica was so proud to realize her feet fit perfectly inside Rita Hayworth's footprints outside the theatre.
This morning, we checked out of that hotel and ventured up into the Hollywood Hills, following directions provided to us by Robert's mom's cousin, to see the Hollywood sign from fairly close up. Let me tell you, the roads were narrow, steep, and windy! They better all have really good brakes and they would be screwed if they ever got snow or freezing rain!
Afterwards, we drove to Santa Monica and had fun jumping waves, playing in the sand, and basking in the heat and sunshine. The people watching was fun too. Robert laughed at me when we finally arrived there though (the length of time it takes to drive 10 km in this city is absolute insanity!). I was trying to park our rental minivan in a narrow spot and I just couldn't get the angle right so I got out of the vehicle and told Robert to park it because I gave up. He giggled hysterically at the fact that I could drive in the 8 lane traffic without any trouble but gave up trying to park the car later.
Finally, we spent another hour and a half in the car driving 20 km to our next hotel - the Safari Inn. It was the seen in True Romance, Coach Carter and Apollo 13 as well as having appeared in a number of TV shows. Close by was a restaurant we'd noticed on the way here called the Dog Haus which ended up being the venue for Duncan's birthday dinner.
Now we are trying to have an early night as we head to Universal Studios for early entry tomorrow.
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