La La Land 2005

We stopped in los angeles for a break in our travels to and from hawaii.

day 1: tuesday, february 22
We arrived at LAX and headed for lunch at the funky, futuristic encounter restaurant, located right at the airport. I had a cheeseburger with brie cheese! We drove over to beverly hills and checked in at the beverly hilton. At night we went to the movies at mann's chinese theater to see finding neverland. The whole block around the theater was closed to traffic, preparing for the academy awards on sunday.

day 2: wednesday, february 23
We had breakfast at the farmers market and then checked out the la brea tar pits. This is an amazing place located right in the heart of beverly hills. Lots of prehistoric animals got stuck in the tar, and their skeletal remains are still being discovered to this day. Then we headed north into the hills and over to simi valley. We had lunch at carl's jr, where I had the fancy six dollar burger and a hand scooped malted shake! Then we drove into a neighborhood and up a hill to the beautiful ronald reagan presidential library. There's lots to see here in the museum, from his early sports glory, his days in the movies, and of course his long political careeer (see my reagan library pics). When we got back to our hotel in the evening, we weren't too much for going out, but we did stop in at trader vic's (which is sort of attached to the hotel). We sampled the crab cake and shrimp appetizers, and I just had to be photographed "drinking a pina colada at trader vic's!"

day 3: thursday, february 24
We were off to the airport and our flight to hawaii!

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day 10: thursday, march 3
We arrived back in los angeles after having a fun time in hawaii. Our hotel this time was the low priced but highly rated magic castle hotel, which turned out to be fantastic. We had a 2 bedroom suite and a great continental breakfast for around $159 a night. For dinner we checked out the restored pig 'n whistle on hollywood blvd (which reopened in 2001). I had some delicious comfort food — spare ribs and macaroni and cheese. After dinner we stopped in for dessert and cocktails at the formosa cafe, where they filmed a famous scene from l.a. confidential (see my around town pics).

day 11: friday, march 4
We headed out of town to the richard nixon presidential library and birthplace in yorba linda (near anaheim). Believe it or not, nixon was my favorite president in my lifetime until george w bush came along! You can listen to the famous checkers speech or the watergate tapes. They also have a neat question and answer area where you can pick a question to ask and watch nixon on film answering it. This great man had a wealth of knowledge, especially in foreign affairs (see my nixon library pics).

After a quick lunch, we drove north to pasadena to check out the famous craftsman style of architecture at the gamble house (considered to be the masterpiece of the style) and also bungalow heaven, which is now a historical district. Then we headed over to universal studios citywalk for the oscar movie of the year: million dollar baby.

day 12: saturday, march 5
Well, it was time to pack our bags and head back east. But first we took a quick drive through fabled chinatown in downtown los angeles. At the airport we picked up a box of sees candy before we departed for philly.

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