Our day of travel was a bit of an adventure that turned out fine in the end. The closest airport to us that Southwest Airlines serves is Philadelphia, but it takes over an hour from our house to drive there. Parking is also outrageous. Luckily for us, we have some incredibly generous friends who live just 20 minutes from the airport. They put us up the night before our flight, and let us park our car at their place for the trip.
We took our first Lyft as a family from R&R's place to the airport at 4am. That was adventure one - we all are just a little uncomfortable with taxi/Lyft/Uber rides. The driver we had was also *INSANE*, and drove way too fast for our liking. We lived, and made it to the airport in plenty of time (again because Nexus saved us! The TSA line was literally out the door - and we walked past the whole thing to be 2nd in line at the TSA Pre-check line). The first flight went uneventfully and we landed in Chicago with a couple of hours to kill. We had some food and boarded the next plane. Just before take-off, the pilot announced an issue with the "winglet". We had just the right seats to watch the airport staff evaluate the issue. We had a short delay of a couple of hours while a new plane was found, we changed gates and planes, and were finally off to Long Beach.
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| That hole isn't supposed to be there... |
This little issue actually solved the problem of how we were going to kill time after landing and before our hotel check-in time. Long Beach airport is super cute, and we easily found our way to the "Ride app" waiting area. It was crowded so it was a bit of a challenge finding our Lyft, but we were successful and soon on our way for the hour ride across LA.
We got to the hotel and waited about 45 minutes for our room to be ready. The Tilt Hotel Hollywood looks a bit sketch from the outside, but the rooms were a pleasant delight. The "family suite" was 2 connected rooms, so we had 2 bathrooms, and 3 beds, in a very clean, spacious and quiet hotel. The free breakfast was pathetic (cold cereal, no milk, pre-packaged breakfast sandwiches, watery juice, and coffee) but we had a Starbucks and a good pizza place right across the street.
We got pizzas for the first night to bring back to the rooms and settled in.
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The next day was the first of two days of tickets on Big Bus Tours. We had received a text late the night before announcing that their "Blue Route" was not going to be serviced for the weekend due to some kind of celebrations going on which resulted in street closures. This nixed our plans to go see Santa Monica Pier. We took a Lyft to the tour's headquarters (which wasn't open yet) and enjoyed the quiet streets while we waited.
Part of our ticket with BBT included a celebrity homes tour, which we originally had scheduled for this day. However, with the beach plans canceled, the Chinese Theater tour and the La Brea Tar Pits on the schedule we asked (and got) our homes tour moved to the next day. We walked the half block down the street, looking at Hollywood stars along the way, to the Chinese Theater. We were about 20 minutes early for the tour, so looked at the many hand and foot prints in the concrete, and read the plaque outside dedicated to Marilyn Monroe, before heading inside for the tour. The tour was delightful, about 45 minutes long, and included a short film so we actually got to sit and watch a "movie" here! Picture dump of the costumes and architecture inside:
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| Avengers!! |
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| Real - for real from the Ming Dynasty! |
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| Family Selfie time! |
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| Have I ever mentioned I like Star Wars a bit? |
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Courtyard shot
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| Chandelier inside the theater |
- 𐫰 - - 𐫰 - - 𐫰 - - 𐫰 - - 𐫰 - - 𐫰 - - 𐫰 - - 𐫰 - - 𐫰 -
Next we got on the HOHO bus right outside the Theater, and took a tour through the city. It was chilly up top in the wind, and we were not expecting to be so cold in California! But we learned a lot and saw a bunch of infamous spots.
About half-way through the tour we "hopped off" at the La Brea Tar pits and museum. We ate lunch at a fantastic burger joint across the street called The Counter, then went and walked around the grounds and museum. I learned so much and was just absolutely fascinated with the fact that these pits are STILL bubbling fossils up to be discovered on a daily basis. (They are also still trapping live animals!) I also learned that we used to have lions, camels and elephants living on this continent (well, their pre-historic versions at any rate) and I feel like my public education failed me in not telling me this before.
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| The scientific name for Saber-toothed cat cracks me up |
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| The "kids" chasing butterflies |
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| An active dig in progress! |
After the museum, we hiked around more of the grounds and local area, and stumbled accidentally on a famous art installation used by Instagram influencers for photo shoots all the time. NJ was in heaven! Since it was our wedding anniversary, hubby and I got our picture taken for the heck of it, too. 😂
Once finished exploring, we "hopped on" the bus to continue the tour around Hollywood, including a better view of the famous Hollywood sign, before returning to our starting location.
We shopped, ate dinner, and then decided to get tickets to the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" museum and Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum in a combo deal. We did the Ripley's museum right away (which I apparently took ZERO pictures of! LOL! I'll have to steal some from the kids later...) and when we finished up there, caught a Lyft back to our hotel for the night.
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