Our first stop in Los Angeles was Santa Monica. We arrived late in the afternoon in time for a walk along the pier and beach and the start of sunset. I shared one of my favourite photos from the whole trip in my last blog post, also taken at the beach here.
The atmosphere here is buzzing, with lots of people out and about on the pier and beach, although not too many on the day we were there – probably because it was cool weather-wise. I loved the fitness equipment on the beach, although I was disappointed I couldn’t join in, as I was recovering from a shoulder injury at the time. Mikayla had a go on a pretty useless kids ride at the carnival there (she thought it was useless too – maybe for a younger kid?). Click on any of the photos below to view a slideshow and see the photos larger:
The drive time from the beach to our accommodation was going to be 2 hours, so we stopped off at Pancho’s Tacos for some yummy Mexican-style food. We loved the Mexican restaurants we went to all through the US, although I generally find it impossible to work out the difference between the 30 menu items available!
We spent a morning at the Griffith Observatory for our obligatory tourist shots of the Hollywood sign and to check out the Observatory. The child misbehaved to an extraordinary degree meaning we didn’t get to spend the time here reading and learning that we would have liked. One thing learned from all of our trips… preschoolers and museum-type things don’t mix!
Another place we enjoyed is the Grove – an up-market shopping town centre and outdoor market. As per usual, we didn’t buy anything, but enjoyed wandering around. Also went out to a delicious dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Confusingly, the Cheesecake Factory serves full meals, not just cheesecakes. I usually prefer a home-made cheesecake to restaurant ones, but these are good! Also at the Grove was a fountain, outdoor grass area and live band.
A random garage I liked!
We headed into downtown LA on the weekend – the place was deserted!! Chris wanted to go up the Observation deck and Skyslide at Skyspace. We wouldn’t do this again or recommend it!! There were some great light displays inside before you get to the observation deck. The slide might be good if you are not a dare-devil, but Chris will do most / all rides at a theme park, so this just didn’t cut it. The daytime views of LA are… well…. smoggy and pretty ugly (sorry LA-ites!). It is a huge city and you could only barely see the sea or dry and dusty hills in the distance, at least, on the day we were there.
It is a pity we did not have a little more time to check out the beaches and maybe even go for a swim. The beaches are beautiful!
Have you visited LA? What did you think?
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Canadian adventure 
Of all the things we missed, it was the Hollywood sign! LOL. We were so consumed with the Chinese theatre and handprints on the floor that we were literally glued there for a few hours! Santa Monica is indeed beautiful. We drove through Rodeo drive, not buying anything!
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We felt like we had to see the Hollywood sign, but I am not sure why – it looks much more impressive in the movies! The Chinese theatre sounds much more interesting. We also did a couple of drives down the famous shopping streets – one of them we completely missed. Oops! Not big shoppers obviously!
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Yeah, it probably is a zoomed up thing in the movies. They say you can drive up there but you’re right there are other more interesting things to do in LA!
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