Comin' Home, Baby

We had a very busy last day in CA. We got checked out of the Lake Arrowhead chalet

about 9am and got on our way west towards LA. Crazy thick fog again, so alas, no views off the mountain highway. We did see another white Dodge Charger though.

We drove through San Berbardino and saw Fantastic Sam's, 

a Miller beer plant, 

 a huge ad for X Box

and lots and lots of traffic

We finally tracked down a food truck, which Sam had wanted to do the whole trip. I used a web page called findlafoodtrucks.com (duh!) and we found Son of a Bun

in an area where lots of game and movie studios have offices. The truck was mostly serving these employees, but I talked the Parking lot guard into letting us park and get lunch. We also checked out the artwork in the studios' hallway,

and inside the offices of SpinMaster, a company that develops and markets board games and internet games. They had a really cool table full of little tiny cars used as markers in one of their games.

Sam had fun watching the truck guys cook and serve orders.

 The food was great! We had burgers and fries with all the trimmings.

After lunch we headed to Hollywood and up to the Griffith Observatory.

We managed to park within a mile of the place on this Wednesday afternoon. The observatory is fascinating with displays all about the planets and stars. There is a Foucault pendulum, great artwork with Greek and Roman astronomy figures, and of course great views of the LA valley below. We got tickets for a Planetarium show. The place is huge and the kids really enjoyed the presentation. We met the narrator later.

Next we hiked up a trail towards the Hollywood sign. We ended up on one that got pretty close, and turned out to be a good one. When we talked to another hiker we found out the trail that goes really close takes 6 hours to hike round trip! We took some good pictures of the view and the sign.

We hiked back down and found the Charger, then drove through city streets, avoiding the parking lot that Interstate 5 is around 5pm. We headed to Venice Beach, passing the Big Blue Bus and a few more food trucks.

We got to the beach about 6 and figured out how and where to park in this very busy place (What place in CA is NOT busy??)

We walked the famous Venice Beach strip and got dinner in a seafood restaurant right on the corner,

 and got the corner table!

 The food was great; fish tacos, a grilled ahi sandwich and a shrimp po'boy.

Later we walked along the beach strip where skaters and skateboarders are often seen hanging out in movies and tv shows.

 I took a final CA beach shot as we left.

We drove to the airport and returned the Charger :(

We passed the iconic LAX sign on our way.

The flight home was exhausting, being at 11pm and on a cramped Frontier jet. We drove home from Atlanta and got unpacked.

It was a great trip with tons of highlights we'll never forget. Hope you have enjoyed the blog. Please reply!