The Golden State and Beyond...

Let me just start out by saying California is awesome! It has everything from city life to country life, to laid back beaches, vineyards, and everything in between... The only other state that is comparable is New York in my own personal opinion. I left off 2 weeks ago in San Diego, we stayed 2 nights and about 3 days there. As previously stated it's a nice layed back place. While I was hoping for some beach and tanning time I was mistaken. Apparently the month of June in San Diego is predominantly overcast with temperatures in the low to high 70's. "June Gloom" as the locals refer to it kind of rained on my parade but we made the best of it, and got to catch up with an old high school friend which made it even better... But we had to get this show on the road, so next stop was Los Angeles...

 It was just a few hours away so we made it to L.A in the early afternoon... First we had driven through Compton (just because we felt it necessary) then Rodeo Drive, and Beverly Hills.  Aside from the fact that we were in Beverly Hills there wasn't too much going on. We were on a road trip which was already costing an arm and a leg so we couldn't shop, but we did see some paparrazzi, amazing homes, and window shopping was pretty fab! The hotel we booked for the night via hotels.com was right by LAX and was one of the nicesest we'd stay at the entire trip. After dinner at a great Thai place around the block from our hotel we decided to get a good night sleep so we could tackle Hollywood and head towards Sequoia National Park the next day.

Hollywood was a lot smaller then I had imagined it, and a lot more seedy and dingy then I had pictured. All in all it was pretty cool though. The Hollywood walk of fame, and Chinese Theatre are definitley a sight to see, as well as the Hollywood sign, other then that we had to keep it moving. But before we left we had to go to famous Randy's donuts. Now let me just take a time out and let you know that L.A traffic is worse then anyone claims, it took about 2.5 hours to make it 15 miles for a donut... this was an absurd idea but the donuts were good, and it made for a cool photo op... so here it is...