Pacific Ocean
Hollywood Boulevard and Santa Monica Pier
To say we moved SLOWLY this morning would be an epic understatement. Laundry, dishes, and mid-vacation inertia made us very late to get out the door…
This may not have been as big a deal were we not entering into some of the worst traffic in the country.
We made it to Hollywood Boulevard and headed to the lot more or less under TCL Chinese Theater (once Mann’s).
We did not venture out to the Hollywood sign, but were satisfied to see it from a distance.
How apropos that the first star we saw was Mickey Mouse’s.
We walked for blocks in multiple directions, trying in vain to use phone-accessed websites for directions to the stars we most wanted to see. For the most part, only Nigel was on a quest to find some of his favorite stars from decades gone by.
Robin Williams
Sylvester Stallone
Tim Conway
Chris Pratt
Winnie the Pooh
Ron Howard
Rod Serling
Poor Gamora…
Samuel L. Jackson (do you see the Marvel theme???)
CHUCK NORRIS!
Stan Lee… NOW you see the Marvel theme. (The little girls know him from Big Hero 6.)
ELVIS!
Don Knotts.
Marie?
Snoopy
Someone named Nancy Kelly – so it was just funny.
Scarlett Johansson.
We could not locate Andy Griffith – Nigel’s favorite. By the time we had a command of the website we were using, we realized we had gotten extremely close at the far end of our walk, but turned back east before we’d hit it.
We found a playground for lunch.
And headed to the Santa Monica Pier.
The Pier itself was a little dicey… but not super sketchy. Finding this sign was my main goal.
Some of the kids expressed their dislike for the idea of donning swimwear and going to the beach. The beach WAS fairly packed. The little girls and Tab were all over the idea, so Mama pushed it just a bit but donning her own suit.
Soon the others reluctantly put theirs on…
And no one regretted it.
We had such a nice time. As I mentioned, the beach was pretty crowded, but that didn’t make it unpleasant. Nan mostly stayed sand-side and the little girls made friends with some kids next to them. There was a lot of frolicking, and we stayed until after 4:30 P.M.
I made a terrible suggestion…. I thought it would be easy to just wear our suits back. It was only about 40 miles back to our house, where we could have changed properly…
Except – TRAFFIC.
No sooner did we start driving did my map app share the bad news.
When the driving gets tough, the tough get pizza.
We stopped at a neighborhood pool club and used their scummy bathrooms to change. Then we found a little neighborhood Pizza Hut in a tiny strip mall and the super nice employee, David, helped us find some great deals available when you order online, which I did from my phone.
We finally got back to our house around 7:30 PM.