Day 5 - Wednesday, October 16 - Sightseeing in LA continued...
Picking up from our visit to Little Tokyo... We decided to head up north to Griffith Park. We wanted to visit the observatory, get a view of the city and the Hollywood sign, and then maybe head further north in the park to see Walt's Barn and/or the carousel.
Hollywood! I have no idea why I wanted to see this so much. I'm not really into movie stars and stuff, it just seemed sort of nostalgic&like you have to see it at least once.
Pickle with her movie star sunglasses
Amazing view. Too bad the smog affected the visibility.
Heading over to the observatory...
Little did we expect, the kids were captivated by the observatory. We spent a LONG time inside. To the point were my foot was killing me. (I had to leave the
scooter back at the hotel.) I'm talking serious pain. Anyway, inside, they had all kinds of interactive models and exhibits. Really cool stuff. Buddy loved the working model of the telescope and dome (you could push buttons to move everything around.) Other exhibits included information about how telescopes work and their history. Also information and samples from all types of telescopes (optical, radio, etc.) They had exhibits about the phases of the moon, how ocean tides work, sun spots, the life of a star (and relative sizes to our sun), and so on. In addition to the astronomy related exhibits, they had a Tesla Coil (insanely cool!) and a Foucault Pendulum. Lot's of cool stuff, we didn't realize that this was more like a museum and it it would be fee. We thought we were just going up for the view. LOL. We'd like to make a dedicated visit here on our next trip!
So, we lost track of time at the observatory and it was getting late. If we wanted to get to the beach before sunset, we would have to skip seeing other parts of Griffith Park. Oh well, let's head to the beach!!! We thought that we'd head to Huntington Beach. We expected traffic, but there were a couple of accidents that made it even slower going. (Happy for smart phones and traffic apps!!) Anyway, we were getting to the point where we only had about an hour or so before sunset, so we hit Seal Beach since it was on the way, but closer. This turned out to be a good choice. The beach was lovely and mostly empty.
We were able to park right up next to the sand...
The kids had a lot of fun playing in the sand and in the ice cold water. Yikes!!
This could have been an outstanding photo. Too bad I cut her head off!!! Doh!
This one turned out OK though
Ninja opted to skip her bathing suit and stay dry
You can't visit the beach without burying yourself in the sand, right?
We stayed until sunset. It was a beauty.
Ninja strikes again
We stayed until it was completely dark. Such a lovely evening!
Time to eat. I've always heard about In-N-Out, but never had one of their burgers. So... Let's find one on the way back to Anaheim!!! Hey look, there's one about 15 minutes from here. Let's do this!!!
Pickle loved watching them make the fries! (I'm not sure why she was making a funny face. But we don't call her Pickle for nothing!!!)
So, in the Midwest, we have Steak-n-Shake and Culver's. Both very good burger chains. I'd have to say that these burgers were in a league of their own. Incredibly delicious!
Ninja had a chocolate shake. It, on the other hand, was just OK. The Midwestern competition wins hands down on this one
A satisfied customer!
It was fun eating outside. Beautiful weather and good energy from the other people around us. Good times.
We took our time eating, and then it was time to make our way over to the Vans Skatepark (in the Outlets at Orange mall, near Anaheim). So, my foot is still healing and I'm not allowed to skate until December at least, but I still wanted to visit one of the holy grails of skateboarding, the Combi Pool!!
We had just missed seeing some of the pro skaters in the pool
But we did see 80's legends Steve Alba (Salba) and Jeff Grosso hanging out in the parking lot. I was too shy to go over and say hi. Pros or not, we did see some incredible skateboarding. There were a couple kids, not much older than Buddy, who were tearing the place apart!!! That square end of the pool is like 11 feet deep with a couple feet of vert. These kids were riding it like it was a mini ramp in their driveway. Backside smith grinds around the corners, airs several feet out, 10 foot lip slides, and so on. Amazing! I'm sure that we were watching the next generation of SoCal pro's coming up through the ranks
I took Ninja inside the shop. This being at an outlet mall, they had some good deals. The staff inside were all very friendly and we had a good time browsing around. Ninja Potato picked out a new pair of Vans shoes and a couple of sweatshirts. At this point, it was about 9pm and everyone was ready to call it a day and head back to the room.
We stopped for gas, dropped the car off in the AMC Movie Theater parking lot, tossed the keys in the return slot, and walked back to our room. I have to say, renting a car for the day form Alamo was really convenient. We sure had an awesome day!
Up next will be early entry for Disneyland!
I really hope we can make it happen.
Looking back on the trip, I'm not sure that I'd have changed a thing!
