Confessions of a Hit and Run Tourist - Day Fourteen

[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 Fourteen - August 11 - Beverly Hills to Beverly Hills

There is no game to attend today, today is beach day. I want to see the iconic Beverly Hills sign, Rodeo Drive, the La Brea Tar Pits and I want to eat Pink's Hot Dog's for lunch and then Malibu followed by the Santa Monica pier and that's it. 

Glunn is originally from Memphis as we were driving to the game on Tuesday night with the L.A. skyline in view, we started talking about city skylines and I thought that his hometown of Memphis had a rather boring skyline. I said the only thing kind of cool was that triangle shaped building. Glunn was a little confused... "Triangle?". Yeah... you know... that triangle shaped building by the Mississippi River. He said... "You mean the Pyramid". "Yeah... the triangle shaped Pyramid". Last night I asked Glunn about where to find these Iconic Beverly Hills signs and he told me it was in a park not far from Rodeo... which it is but the big one wasn't the one I was talking about... So I said... no... that little triangle shaped one. And he said... You mean the shield. Glunn is clearly resistant to a triangle reference.  

Anyway, those triangle shaped Beverly Hills shield signs are on the edge of town. Saw one and then I went back to the Park with the big sign to park and I walked to Rodeo. Back in Wyoming I attended my first Rodeo... Today I would experience my first Rodeo.

I walked the whole thing, I didn't go inside any stores because I didn't need a $10,000 purse and I didn't want to have to tell the sales people that I was poor. I remember the feel of the incredible air conditioning coming through the open doors as you walked past each establishment, it was like the complete opposite of a blast furnace. They have to have the best air conditioning ever in those stores for that much to drift into the streets. I saw nobody stepping out of a Rolls-Royce holding a poodle. In my estimation all of the people who were walking Rodeo were tourists just like myself. Every store that I walked past had what appeared to be around 3 sales professionals standing around ready for action and what I assume was a security guard dressed in black suit, black shirt, black tie. I didn't see any customers in any of the stores that I walked past. Hard to pay the bills that way but I suppose that just one sale at these stores has a little more bang for the buck than most places.

After Rodeo it was off to the La Brea Tar Pits which was what I expected it to be but I was going anyway just to say that I've been. You see the Tar bubbling up, you read all the prehistoric tales. You look around at the high rise buildings that surround it and think that it's odd that this exists here in the middle of Los Angeles. It is actually stranger than the oddness of a pile of white sand just sitting there in New Mexico. 

After the Tar Pits you drive a mile or two up La Brea Avenue to Melrose for lunch at the legendary Pink's Hot Dogs. I ordered the Brando Dog and the Chicago, you barely step inside to order, then you wait in a room filled with autographed celebrity photos to get your dogs and then you sit on a table outside to eat them. The Hot dogs were fantastic but I have to say that Chicago does the Chicago dog better. On the plus side though, I'll say this... if the Dodger Dog was anything like this... it would be worth the nationwide praise that it gets. Pinks is better than Sonic... That's right... I said it.    

With all of the driving around that I have done in the past couple of days. There is one thing that becomes obvious. You get to see L.A. one stop light at a time. You simply don't get the chance to go through two stop lights in a row. It doesn't happen. Every stop light, you stop and wait and it doesn't seem to matter if you are the first car at the light or 8th car at the light. You won't get two in a row. Your GPS constantly says 0.3 miles - 10 Minutes.

My next destination is Malibu. I want to see what this town is all about. It's a busy highway up the coast on Highway 1. When you first get to Malibu, you think you are in Malibu but you are not. There is a much bigger Malibu if you keep driving west.

I was sitting at stop light, I'm used to this by now and I see this lady that was clearly somebody I knew from Grand Forks but I couldn't remember her name, I was thinking to myself, what are the odds of seeing someone from Grand Forks this far away. I was desperately trying to remember her name just in case she saw me. I was focused on her, racking my brain as she started to cross the street in front of me. Who is that? Then she turned a little and I got her whole face... I know her who is that! She must have noticed that I was staring at her... not intentionally, I was just trying to figure out who it was and she looked right at me and she waved! It was Goldie Hawn. she wasn't from Grand Forks but that is why I recognized her and she waved at me because... well I assume it was obvious that I was staring at her and that makes me a creep.  

I spent an hour or so Malibu seaside... Just sat on a rock and looked at the water and the beach goers having a good time. I don't know what it is about the ocean but I love it and I don't mind just sitting on a rock. I didn't stay that long because I also wanted to see Santa Monica, I took the long way though because I saw a sign saying Malibu Canyon Road and that sounded to inviting to pass up. It was a very beautiful drive, totally worth it and it leads you to Calabasas. I wasn't looking for it specifically but I tripped over it and I remember this was where Kobe's Helicopter went down. I pulled over just to do a little research on my phone, there are hills/mountains surrounding the town. I have an idea where the helicopter crashed but I don't know exactly where the helicopter crashed but I am pretty sure of this... The whole town of Calabasas would have been able to step out their front door and watch this tragedy from a far. The mountains circle the town on all sides.   

I was thinking to myself that my tourism just got morbid so I took it one more step and I impulsively routed myself to Brentwood to the O.J. murder house. The new owner of the house has changed the address, and plants are now completely blocking the view, I don't blame the new owners of all. It's smack dab in the middle of what I would guess to be a middle class neighborhood comparatively at least to the high dollar places not that far away. OK... enough of that type of stuff, I can check out the Sharon Tate house later. Off to Santa Monica.  

How do I describe Santa Monica by the pier. Well... First off... The beaches at Malibu were much more laid back. The area around the Santa Monica pier... that would be like Paul Bunyan picking up the entire town of... let's say... Alexandria, Minnesota and dropped the entire thing into a giant filter, that just poured all of the people out in a two block radius and then he didn't provide enough chairs so everybody just started walking around like that never happened. This is a Thursday afternoon... I couldn't imagine a Saturday.

I have mentioned how the stop lights slow you down in L.A.... In Santa Monica it isn't the stop lights... it's the people. You just hope you don't hit somebody because you don't want to dent your car. They don't wait for the crosswalk signs... they don't use the crosswalks much either. You are waiting for the car ahead of you to move but he can't because that car has to wait for the people to get out of the way. Finally the car in front moves but you can't because you have people crossing in front of your car.

I walked the pier... sure enough there is a Bubba Gump Shrimp just like you would expect. Rides... Games. OK, I've seen it and then I went down to the beach. 

I haven't mentioned the homeless much in L.A. I've heard that it was bad but I didn't see a lot of it in the areas I hit. Saw some on Hollywood Boulevard and you are sure to see the tents located under almost any over pass or bridge you drive under. However, when I walked under the Santa Monica Pier, there were 3 tents underneath the pier. I thought to myself... If I was homeless, this is the spot. The pier would provide constant shade no matter the angle of the sun and you have Ocean Front property.

I finished the afternoon with a long beach walk, I took off my socks and shoes, carried them as I just kept walking North on the edge of the waves, I would have to stop every 4th wave because that one would be shin high and if I kept walking through that one, I would kick the water up on to my clothing. It ended up being an incredibly consistent pattern. Walk for 3 waves... Stop on the 4th... Walk for 3 waves... stop on the 4th. Now I'm wondering why that was so consistent. I'll have to call an oceanographer or Ashbury to find out why. According to my watch, I put in 20,000 steps in this 1,2,3 Stop fashion. 

Glunn had suggested Dinner in Beverly Hills that night which sounded great. He usually takes the dogs for a walk and out to dinner with him. He has a couple of great dogs. Both very friendly but the younger dog is younger dog friendly so he jumps on you. I understood that Glunn was trying to train him to be a little less so but I didn't mind at all, the dog personality is a wonderful thing. Yeah, you should train them but hopefully not too much because the Hey How Are Doing dogs are the best dogs. They certainly get attention as you walk the streets, they are incredible icebreakers to meeting people. 

This may not sound like much to some but I have never seen an orange, lemon or grapefruit tree, Glunn has all 3 in his back yard. I thought that was awesome, I was a little mesmerized by them. The oranges were not ripe yet but there was a grapefruit ready and the lemon's were all good to go. I got a real big kick of being able to pluck them off the tree. Took them back to North Dakota, handed them to my wife and I proudly said "I picked those myself". She said "Good Job Honey" but I sensed that the praise may have come with a hint of sarcasm. 

During the walk to the restaurant, there is a neighborhood intersection of Gregory and Peck, I took note of that and wondered if we would run into an intersection of Steve and McQueen but we didn't. We stopped to eat at an upscale Mexican restaurant called Mirame. These were not fancy Chimichanga's, I can't recall what we ordered because they all had a combination of words that I wasn't used to. Multiple dishes came to the table, all were very tasty. I know I ordered a crab dish and I'm reasonable certain that it's the first dish I've ever had with Roe sprinkled over the top of it. The closest that I've come to something like that was in Cheyenne when they sprinkled Fruity Pebbles over the Shrimp Poboy. The Dogs got theirs under the table, they seemed to like the restaurant and Dogs are typically very generous with the gratuity. 

With no game that night, it was like having a day off. It was a good day.  

Tomorrow... Still no scheduled depart time... I will simply rise and shine.