Los Angeles Advice

I'm staying at the Crowne Plaza Casino in Commerce. But with the rental car almost anything is in reach. As far as the wierd people stuff like Venice Beach, I'm not that interested in that stuff. Just not my thing. I'd much rather see the tourist places that everyone goes like Mann's Chinese Theater and junk like that.

 

Be forewarned, if you go to get your picture made with SpongeBob or Pocahontas or whateverthehell character is parading out front of the theater, be prepared to shell out. They expect to be paid.

 

I already have a photo of with SpongeBob from a trip to Vegas.

 

Yeah, PCH is very cool. I'd also drive Mulholland. Lots of cool views of the Hollywood Bowl, the LA Skyline, Studio City and the Hollywood sign.

Pink's is just OK, though if you get there before 11 a.m., the line is not that long.

 

If you've got one free day, you should pick an area to explore.
Rental car or not, if you try to do Griffith, Hollywood and Malibu in a day, you'll spend more time traveling from place to place than you will enjoy any given place.

 

Dear Highlander: The beaches in LA are not like the beaches in, say, Delaware or North Carolina. On my first visit to the city in 1970, a drive along PCH in Malibu allowed me to gawk at Wilt Chamberlain playing volleyball with a bunch of beautiful women, followed shortly by a team of skywriting planes spelling out "See Mick Jagger in "Performance." (Yeah, they did the quotation marks).
If you haven't been to the beach, you haven't been to LA. That's one outsiders' opinion, anyway.

 

One thing that might help you, highlander, is to go to your local library and check out a Fodor's guide (or whatever guide) to Los Angeles. I recently checked one out for a trip I took to a city I wasn't familiar with, and they had everything broken down by different parts of town and it really saved me a couple times where I ended up somewhere I didn't expect to end up and therefore didn't know where to eat, etc. Also, you can flip through and see what else might interest you that is proximate.

 

It will probably either be Hollywood or Malibu. This will be my first trip to California as an adult. My mother always reminds me that I loved my previous trips to California when I was 2 and 3. She also says the same thing about when I went to Las Vegas and the College World Series when was the same age.

As for Pink's I don't really want to go there and eat as much as just drive by there.

 

I dig Pink's, but I always go early, a little before 11 a.m.
I don't have any interest in spotting celebrities.

 

And Tail of the Pup is sitting in some warehouse in Torrance.

 

Bring your rain gear. For chrissakes it's been raining here for 5 straight days and no end in sight!

But once you're here, head downtown and check out the Coliseum (hi Peter!)...all kidding aside, head to the Getty off the 405 if you've got a few hours and the weather's nice. Also, the best pastrami sandwich in America is served at Langer's Deli (also downtown). It closes at 4 though.