Los Angeles - Hollywood and Mulholland Scenic Drive

http://www.lamountains.com/parks.asp?parkid=37
http://www.walkoffame.com/
http://www.tclchinesetheatres.com/

A big part of our day exploring Los Angeles was driving around. I can't give you an exact route, and I only have pictures from places where we stopped. Mainly I need to give a huge "Thank You!" to Steve and Jen for being our guides.

Much of the driving was done along the Mulholland Scenic Corridor, and the photos are all from overlooks there. The photos are not great, but you will probably recognize the Hollywood sign, and possibly the Griffith Observatory, and maybe even the Hollywood Bowl and Universal City. Anyway, we saw them, and I took low quality pictures of them.

One thing that was interesting for me was that if we go back to the Disneyland blogging from when they started making Paradise Pier more Disney-specific, the Goofy's Flight School ride was originally Mulholland Madness. It is a mouse-trap style roller coaster, with sharp twists and drops. I think they may have wanted to have that type of roller coaster anyway as a counterpoint to California Screamin', which is more conventional. Seeing how the corridor winds and twists as it makes its way around the hills, I can see how that would have seemed like a reasonable name for the roller coaster.

There were a lot of familiar names from movies and television and rock history. We passed something with the name of Laurel, and just as soon as it reminded me of "Laurel Canyon", there was the sign for that. That was pretty cool.

We also drove around in the city. We passed the Viper Room and Whisky a Go Go and Koreatown, and a very eye-catching building that I looked up later and found out it houses Mark Mothersbaugh's production company. There is a lot to see.

The most visually stimulating part was probably right as we got to the Walk of Fame and Chinese Theatre.

I have seen the pictures, but I never knew about the costumed characters. They are everywhere.

I noticed mainly superheroes and some trademarked children's characters. I think there were at least three Spider-men. I guess you can take pictures with them, and would be expected to tip them for this. This is similar to what I have heard of Times Square in New York. Julie said it reminded her of Las Vegas, but there should be a slutty cop, and then just as she was finishing saying that she found the slutty cop.

(When I was in Vegas, I only remember seeing Elvis, but my sisters have been there more recently than me.)

Anyway, this was totally good to see by driving by and not stopping. I realize that when people refer to LA as La-la-Land, that's not exactly what they mean, but still, that part looks pretty hallucinatory.

Allow me to stress that there are multiple tour vans and buses everywhere that will take you through town and around town. So if you don't have kind friends who know the area, you can still see these things.

But having the friends is pretty cool.