Tripometer – 9458 mi
Gas Gauge – 737.398 gal
Location – Soledad Canyon RV & Camping Resort, Acton, CA
Lodging – $50
Cans of OFF – 4
Ranger woke up this morning a new dog. THANK GOD. Apparently we managed to break our dog with car rides and lack of sleep (he still will not sleep a wink while the car is moving). He is back to his old self again and acting like a full blown puppy.
After Kelly finished work this afternoon we jumped in the car and headed into L.A. Our first destinations were Bel Air and Beverly Hills. We both really enjoy looking at beautiful homes and properties and this looks to be one of the fanciest neighborhoods that either of us have ever seen. We found Bel Air to be interesting but most of the homes are relatively spartan on the street front, most of the value of these homes is in the location relative to L.A. and the tremendous views from the back of the houses. The streets we were driving down ride the ridges of several hills in Bel Air and all of the homes seem to be cantilevered over the edge of the hills to get the best view of the surrounding valleys. Most of the homes appear to be relatively modestly sized but we imagined the interiors to be fantastic.
Beverly Hills turned out to be all we expected. Having no taste for expensive for expensive’s sake, we weren’t looking forward to spending any time in Beverly Hills or in any of the shops along Rodeo Drive. We did enjoy some of the cars we saw driving through the area. It was like a car show watching Rolls Royces, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and even a McLaren drive casually down the streets here. We both really enjoyed the ‘Witches House’ pictured above. The house could well have sprung from the pages of a children’s book of fairy tales.
The homes in Beverly Hills were much more attractive to look at than those in Bel Air. Spaced farther apart with room for landscaping, these homes were spectacular. We saw a fairly wide range of ages on these homes. Some were from the early days of Beverly Hills in the 1920s, but most have either been refurbished several times since then or completely torn down and rebuilt. We were both shocked at the continuous buzz of maintenance and renovation companies working on these homes and yards. There seemed to be much more work truck traffic than residential traffic in the streets.
We discovered a little unexpected gem right in the heart of Beverly Hills. About 200 yards down from the Beverly Hills sign that Kelly and Ranger posed in front of was an amazing little cactus garden that is very lovingly maintained (I wonder where they get all of the money to pay for this??!?). We all enjoyed a nice walk through the garden looking at many types of cactuses that neither of us had ever seen before. We’re both very excited to immerse ourselves into the desert southwest. The cactus garden was a welcome start to this area’s ecology. Ranger is none too impressed with the prickly plants. As an interesting side note, the dog poop bags available just outside of the cactus garden were the uber-expensive, thick plastic, and perfumed type. Not just scented, these were highly-perfumed, likely with Chanel we joked. We grabbed a few of those tiny luxuries before we got back in the car to head on down the road.
Not finding enough to occupy ourselves with in the uber-rich area of Bel Air and Beverly Hills, we drove to Hollywood Boulevard in search of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Hollywood sign. We’re not sure what we expected but we both quickly realized that all of the songs we’ve heard over the years referring to both Sunset Strip and Hollywood Boulevard as ‘dirty’ were not just referring to social and figurative filth. Hollywood is one dirty city. We had intended to walk the walk of fame looking at the Hollywood stars, but honestly the sheer quantity of in-your-face drug use and homeless people stopped us from looking for a place to park. Paul spent the drive trying to read some names on stars as we drove slowly down the boulevard. After exclaiming that he had found Betty Davis’ star Kelly remarked snidely that she was sure Betty would probably not approve of the homeless man brushing his teeth over a trashcan next to her star.
The highlight of Hollywood for us was the discovery of Hollywoodland. The Hollywood sign that we are all familiar with originally said ‘Hollywoodland’ as an advertisement for this housing community nestled up in a canyon just North of Hollywood Boulevard. We discovered the area when we drove into the neighborhood to hopefully grab a better picture of the Hollywood sign. The homes here were so much more interesting and comfortable feeling than any we had seen in either Bel Air or Beverly Hills. Many of the houses were in the Tudor style and made us both feel as though we were in the hills outside of London.
Tonight’s drive back to our canyon campground was our first experience with rush hour traffic in L.A. In the picture above you can see nine lanes of backed up traffic all not moving in the same direction. We won’t be griping about traffic jams in other cities for a while.