Road Trip Day #8 - Los Angeles

DAY 8 - Saturday, October 25, 2008

Wahhh! The last day of our trip! Nooooooooooo. I really didn't want it to end... we had such an amazing time! I'm so glad we did it.

Saturday morning, we met Brian for brunch at a really cute restaurant named Alcove. The majority of the restaurant's seating is on outdoor patios... something else that would never survive in Cleveland. I love eating outside. I wish more places in Cleveland offered it... well, and that the weather would cooperate more often. Anyhow, the atmosphere at Alcove was really nice and the food was great too. Mmm.

Oh, here's a pic coming down the mountain from Shea's dad's house:
After brunch, Brian took us on a tour of Hollywood. He drove us around and then we stopped and to explore the area. We walked around the area near the Kodak Theatre (where the Academy Award ceremonies are held... and is pretty much in a mall- who knew?). We ran into a group of people filming what looked to be a pretty crappy zombie movie. It was kind of annoying, honestly. Here we were just trying to do some normal every-day sight-seeing, and there's all these zombies limping around and blocking walkways. Argh. I should have taken a picture of the zombies... darnit. Instead, I did the more touristy thing and took a picture of this:
Saw this too... but we weren't able to go to any shows while we were out there.
We spent some time looking at all the hand and footprints outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
I loved looking at all these. I'm so glad we stopped. Here are a few of my favorites:
Judy Garland had some impossibly small feet.
Ahh! And then I saw Master Chief! Turns out he wears UnderArmour.
Master Chief's outfit was actually made out of cardboard, but he did a damn good job. As I admired his choice to wield the energy sword, I realized how it's probably the only Halo weapon you could get away with carrying in public. I'm pretty sure he'd be quickly removed by the police if he tried walking around Hollywood with a rocket launcher on his shoulder.

After Hollywood, Shea, Michelle, and I went to the beach. I think we ended up somewhere between Venice and Santa Monica.
The beach was beautiful. The water was too cold for swimming, but we layed out.
The seagulls out there were INTENSE. They mutilated a bag of leftovers that some people temporarily left by their stuff while they walked around. It was fun to watch. Every time I see ocean seagulls (oceangulls?), I'm always amazed by how much larger they are than Lake Erie seagulls (lakegulls?).
At the beach, a bee stung me on my right ring finger! Argh. I had only been stung by a bee once before, on a family vacation to Disney World in 1996. So I definitely forgot how much it hurts! My finger swelled up pretty big and it took over a week to go down. Interestingly, now, almost a month later, I can still see a red spot on my finger where I got stung and sometimes it itches or hurts. Weird. I hope that's okay?

Later that night, we went to Cory's Halloween party!!!!!
Here are some random pictures of us from the party... Aren't our shirts cute?!
We had SO much fun and everyone we met was so nice. A lot of people referred to us collectively as "Ohio". As in, "Hey Ohio, come over here!" haha.
This Transformers helmet was sitting on a table... and we just had to try it on...
After a great time at the party, we crashed at Brian's apartment because he lives closer to the airport than Shea's Dad. Sunday morning, we woke up early and Shea and Brian dropped off me and Michelle at LAX.

I was so sad our trip had come to an end. I'm glad we were rushed at the airport drop-off because given any more time, I would have been bawling. It's so hard to put the way I feel about our journey into words without sounding cliche... it's indescribable. I'll just leave at that... but hopefully these posts gave some insight!