Confessions of a Hit and Run Tourist - Day Thirteen

[Riverbrian]

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. 

Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. 

Day Thirteen - August 10 - Beverly Hills to Beverly Hills

The only thing that is time sensitive today is the game tonight. I just have a list of things to see for myself with my own two eyes. You can see why Beverly Hills became such a magnet for residents to inhabit because it is perfectly situated in the middle of all of it. To the South is the Los Angeles Metro, to the West it's Bel-Air and Westwood, followed by Brentwood and then Santa Monica and the ocean. To the East, it's Hollywood, To the North it's the Hills of the Santa Monica Mountains, filled with expensive real estate and on the other side of that mountain range is the San Fernando Valley with familiar locations like Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys, Burbank, Encino and Reseda. With all of the entertainment that gets pumped out of this area and fed across the country and globe, the local geographical references keep getting spoon fed to us in distant lands until they are familiar. It took me a little while to find my feet but you find your feet because the streets are laid out conveniently and pop culture helps you remember them. Starting North and moving South the roads running East/West are Hollywood Boulevard and then Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica Boulevard, Melrose, Wilshire. Up in the Hills, there is Mulholland Drive and Laurel Canyon. You see the street signs and you know them because the pop culture is dripping off of them. This is what I'm doing today.

When planning the things I wanted to see in L.A. back in North Dakota, I did a good job of laying things out geographically for the best efficiency. In hindsight, I did a real good job, really too bad that I didn't really recall the map in my head while executing because that would have stopped me from making an adjustment on the fly that would end up costing me later.  The only place that I really wanted to eat at this day was a place called Phillippe the Original, this is where the French Dip was invented and it is located not far Dodger stadium but I forgot that it was so close to the stadium and this is why DINNER was the original plan. I had a hankering for a French Dip right now, I didn't want to get timed out and miss this restaurant so I broke away from my carefully lined up plans and drove a considerable distance to take care of this mid-day French Dip desire. The plan was Sunset Blvd, followed by Hollywood Blvd (Walk of Fame) and then up into the hills stopping at the Hollywood Bowl first. From where I parked by the Fonda Theater on Hollywood Blvd... I could have thrown a sandwich and hit the Hollywood Bowl but I was just getting started driving around the area, I hadn't found my feet and I didn't know the Hollywood Bowl was this close. The restaurant that invented the FRENCH dip is actually in Chinatown or at least on the edge of Chinatown and it would be a half hour, there and back. The sandwich was very tasty but I was surprised that it didn't come with au jus, it was pre-soaked inside the sandwich so no dipping was required... So I guess, I just had the French. 

I also found out today that my Kia has an electrical glitch that involves this middle finger transmission temp warning icon. I've learned that my Kia doesn't like steep grade climbs at a slow pace, because it produces this transmissions temp warning. The glitch occurs if I don't cycle out of this icon/warning on my instrument cluster to something else like fuel economy or anything really, BEFORE I shut the car off. If I start the car and the last thing on the display was the transmission temp, it shuts down everything as my entire dash blinks on and off non-stop. I have no speedometer, no rpm reading. the entire dash is basically disabled as it just blinks away. When it happens, as you can imagine, you are just thinking... "What the...".

On the way to Lake Hollywood Park for the best viewing of the Hollywood sign, it was slow steep incline that caused my Transmission Temp Icon to trigger again like it did in San Francisco. I left it up this time to monitor as I was descending back down, I stopped to fuel, turned the car off and was greeted by the blinking when I started the car up again. I hit the page button to see if it did anything, it didn't do anything... not yet anyway so I shut the car off again. After awhile, I turned the car back on again and everything was back to normal. The car is fine with no signs of trouble, I didn't know that I fixed it by simply changing the page from the transmission temp reading. 

The tourism started on the Sunset Strip. I'm a big rock music fan, the Whisky a go go is probably the most iconic music venue around and the Rainbow and the Roxy are just a couple of blocks to the west of it. I have little doubt in my mind that if I would have been in this area in my youth, that this is where I would have hung out. The Whisky doors were open, not much going on in it but I was able to see inside, the décor was from decades gone by and I was surprised by how small it was. I'm guessing it would hold about 300 people give or take 100. Next stop was the walk of fame on Hollywood Boulevard, to get there I drove east on Sunset this early Wednesday morning... I can tell you that it wasn't the Sunset blinding me on SUNSET, which I found ironic. BTW... I drove past the Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory a couple of blocks to the east of the Whisky. Now there is no doubt in my mind that the Sunset strip would have been my preferred hang out. 

The Walk of fame was pretty much what I expected, most everybody knows what it is, it's a sidewalk that draws tourists because it has the names of celebrities in stars all along the walk. Tourists come to... Well... I'm a tourist and I'm not sure why I came but I was going to walk it anyway... for the exercise at the very least. I parked by the Fonda theater with a plan to walk about a mile to Grauman's Chinese Theater, BTW they sold the naming rights, it's now called TCL Chinese Theater, not the same ring to it, I'll just say good luck reading the scribbled names next to the hand prints. Just a couple of blocks into my walk I hit Hollywood and Vine, I look to the North and there is the iconic Capitol records building, that was kind of cool to see. When you start the walk of fame, you read every single name for a couple of blocks, then you start looking into stores and your surroundings and you are reading maybe 50% of the names and eventually you just stop reading names altogether, you don't even look down and are just stepping on the names without apologizing. On the way back on the other side of the Boulevard, there was a point where I stumbled a little bit but caught myself before falling. I looked back and I had tripped over Loretta Swit... Yep... Hot Lips almost got me. 

After my journey from lunch and back, I headed for the Hills, I didn't get a good view of the Hollywood Bowl but I know where it is and what the surroundings are like as it sits off the 101. Next stop was Lake Hollywood Park for Hollywood sign viewing. This is a significant climb upward to what appears to be a remote beautiful lakeside neighborhood with some isolation from what is happening below. It's a good view of the Hollywood Sign, which is Big, White, and Hollywood is spelled correctly. 

Next stop was Laurel Canyon, as a rock music fan, this is where that California sound was created because this where they all lived. Jim Morrison, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell, The Mama's and Papa's, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds, The Eagles, Carole King. I stopped at the Canyon Country Store because it served as a gathering spot, they would hang around outside here and jam together. I'm sad to report that they were not jamming when I arrived. The store is... old and cluttered in an attempt to maintain it's hippieness. This was my planned lunch stop that I french dipped away, Lets just say that it did not look like the deli was what they did best, but this was the supposed epicenter of the canyon scene. There was also one house that I wanted to see, the house that Joni MItchell and Graham Nash shared, the inspiration for the song "Our House". There were no CATS in the YARD so life must be hard again. 

Next up was Mulholland Drive. I assume that this famous road must be on the very top of the Santa Monica Mountains because you get great views of both L.A. and the San Fernando Valley. The homes up here are... I assume... expensive. From this viewpoint, the skyline seems smaller than the population suggests it should be. Chicago for example has a massive skyline that runs along Lake Michigan for miles. L.A. is condensed for lack of a better word. I do imagine that the night view from this vantage point would be quite spectacular with the city lights below. The road goes on and on, as I drove west. When I reached the 405 I figured I better turn South or I would eventually drive into the ocean. I drove by the UCLA campus in Westwood via Sunset Boulevard, Found Hefner's mansion, just a block off of Sunset Boulevard. You can go from a busy boulevard to exclusive neighborhood in one block around here, from there it wasn't far from the Beverly Hillbillies mansion, which is in Bel-Air... not Beverly Hills. Bushes, gates and walls is what you see at these two locations so it wasn't that exciting but at least I know the area and surroundings with my own two eyes.   

It's getting late in the afternoon now and it's time to head to Dodger Stadium. Grabbed some In-N-Out Burger to eat on the way. Had plenty of time to eat safely, because it was traffic jam all the way. 15 miles to drive and it took over two hours to get there. I ended up being late and I did not get my Freddie Freeman bobblehead. This is where that French Dip lunch impulse decision cost me. If I had just followed the plan, I would have been eating near Dodger Stadium and I would have made the game on time with plenty of room to spare. Just some advice to the kids... Unless you are in Tijuana, Stick to the plan.

The GPS took me through some nearby neighborhoods, it was a steep uphill traffic jam to get in, which produced what my Kia does not like. Slow, Uphill Driving and my transmission temperature middle finger came back for a visit while I was on Vin Scully drive, not far from the stadium entrence. When I parked the car and shut it off... I did not cycle off the transmission temp page because I hadn't put the two things together yet.  

The Twins gave it a little more fight tonight, had a lead for a bit after a Polanco homer that I had a great view of, but the Dodgers took care of that momentary joy. 

Leaving the stadium, I start the car... it starts blinking on me. I am sure that I'll have to take this in to get it fixed but not here... not now. I still don't know what is causing this, the car is running fine, so I opt to drive with these blinking conditions. New problem... I'm driving and I'm pushing buttons trying to pull up Glunn's address in my previous saved list and I didn't realize that it took my navigation out completely as well. I also kind of forgot that the speedometer would no longer be available and then I hit the freeway without it. I just told myself, keep heading west. I'll be fine. I hate to say it but I'm pulling my cell phone out of my pocket while driving and I'm trying to speak an address into the phone to take over navigation, I don't remember the address, it's programmed into my Kia. I keep heading west, then I'm speaking the symptoms of the Kia into my phone to find the answer. I pulled off to find a spot to read the answers. I find a response on reddit that describes having the same problem after getting a transmission temp warning. I hit the page button, I start the car, no blinking with it on the compass, I shut the car off, cycle to other things like tire pressure, start the car, no blinking, I do this with other settings, no blinking. I cycle back to transmission temp, I start the car and it's back to blinking. Eureka... I Found it. I can't start the car with the transmission temp displayed on the dash or she will blink. It's a glitch that I would have never known about driving on the flat lands of Eastern North Dakota. By some stroke of luck, the exit I took to stop and read, was the exact exit that my GPS would have told me take. I made it... I was little stressed but I made it. 

Tomorrow... It's more L.A. and I'll get going when I get up.