LA Tour

Friday 17th September 1999

We showered and got everything packed into the car for the return journey, and then we breakfasted at Denny’s again. All the rich food had finally taken its toll, for Ian and I at least, as we settled for cereal and fruit. After breakfast, we filled up the car with petrol and snacks for the journey, washed all the car windows, which had a habit of getting dirty, and then we drove about fifty yards up the road to the next car park. We stopped to take photographs of all the surfers, in the fresh, bracing, morning air. Then, we set off properly. We drove back up the freeway, through San Francisco, back across the Bay Bridge, past Oakland, and our first stop was the Target store, some 35 miles down, to collect our photographs that we had left for developing. I picked up some make-up - four bottles of nail polish and two mascara’s, at a fraction of the price they would have been in the UK - I had even seen the L’Oreal nail polishes a couple of months earlier for £4.99 each. In the Target store they were $3.50, which works out about £2.00! The lot cost me about $24.00 - about £14.00! At home, I could have brought one mascara and one and a half bottles of nail varnish for that much! We also went back in Mervyns and Ian and I picked up some trendy American style shorts - baggy and below the knee, similar to some Tony had worn, and they were in the sale - more bargains!

On the way back we stopped for dinner at a restaurant called "The Apricot Tree", and this was a really nice place. We ordered our food, and I had a mushroom burger (a hamburger with mushrooms in a bun) with chips and salad, and while we waited, we had a look around the restaurant, because above our heads, on display were dozens of lunch boxes, all with characters from TV shows, cartoons, and films! They also had a fair collection of character thermos flasks! There were Western ones, sci-fi ones including Space 1999, Star Trek and Thunderbirds, Superman, Spiderman, Batman and all sorts! Some of them were really old as well, probably twenty years or more! The restaurant also had a gift shop attached to it, selling ornaments, toys, etc, with loads of Beanie Babies, and they were selling hand made fudge by the slab, all different flavours, so we just had to get some to take back. We chose some chocolate, pecan, apricot, white chocolate, there were loads of delicious flavours to choose from!

We drove up the "Grapevine", making sure we had enough petrol and turning off the air conditioning, and approached L.A. just as it was getting dark. We arrived back in Burbank at about 7.30 p.m. Tony, Nick and Lulu were relieved to see us, as they had been starting to worry. We told them all about our adventures in San Francisco, and of course, all the famous people we had seen! Nick and Lulu had already eaten, as Nick was up early again in the morning, and so Tony took us out to Koo- Koo-Roos, to get some take-away roasted chicken and salads, to bring back to the apartment. Again, the food was delicious, and the portions were huge! I had to leave some of my salad, and I left it in the fridge in case I was hungry later!

Saturday 18th September 1999

	Today Tony was our guide again, as it was the weekend. We had asked Tony the night before where else could we go and visit, and Ian had asked what place nearby, not far out of L.A. would all the movie studios be using for the rocky scenery in such as Star Trek, and various other shows. Tony wasn’t sure, but he suggested "Vasquez Rocks", as this was where "The Flintstones" movie was filmed, amongst other things. So we drove back out of L.A. taking a similar route as we had to San Francisco - out to the North of L.A., but we took one of the other freeways, and about 45 minutes out of L.A. we took the next exit and drove several miles down a small, windy, country road. We followed signposts to "Vasquez Rocks Country Park" and shortly after, we were there. We parked the car in a sandy place shaded by a few trees (the sun was beating down on us, which was rather odd, as we had left L.A. in an unusual cloudy coolness that morning), and we followed the dust track on foot, marvelling as we caught sight of the unique natural rock formations.
	Massive peculiar shaped rocks protruded into the sky at amazing angles, and we spent some time filming and taking photographs. Vince and Tony attempted to climb some of the rocks, while I was content to shade from the sun underneath an overhanging rock. Ian was then too hot and tired to walk back to the car, so Tony waited with him while Vince and I went to fetch the car. Since we have come back, we have seen Vasquez Rocks on T.V. loads of times - we watched the beginning of Tony’s Flintstones video that evening - and we were saying, "we’ve been there!" They are used in loads of films, and we have even seen them in S Club Seven’s video for their song "S Club Party"!
	We returned to Denny’s in Burbank for some lunch, (I was feeling rather queasy by this time with too much food, and so I just had a Belgian Waffle and fresh strawberries - I thought the fruit would do me good, although I had to scrape off the piles of whipped cream on them). In the afternoon we went downtown L.A. to look at the La Brea Tar Pits - as featured in several movies including one we had watched several weeks before we left - "Volcano!" The Tar Pits looked nothing like they had on screen, however, they were situated in a museum complex, and so we spent a couple of hours wandering around there. We again took lots of photos, and I took some great ones of the gases bubbling out of the Tar Pits, making the Tar shoot several feet into the air - and then I realised I hadn’t took the lens cap off! I waited in vain for the gases to bubble up again, and then gave up. The Tar Pits are the result of millions of years of this crude oil-like stuff collecting in these pits, and the gases bubble up from underground. Many fossils have been preserved in the pits, and then discovered - and it is those that are on display in the museums. On our way out, Ian persuaded some Policemen on bicycles to let him take their photos!

On our way back to Burbank, we stopped to look at this car yard / garage, where some old vehicles from the movies are stored - the car from Logan’s Run was there, amongst others. And then we returned to the apartment - this being Saturday night, Lulu was cooking us a special meal to celebrate Ian’s Birthday - Fajitas, our favourite! They were delicious! And I picked up a cooking tip - Lulu made Guacamole, and placed the avocado stones in the dish - this stops the pureed avocados from turning brown! Tony, Nick and Lulu also had some lovely gifts they had been saving for Ian until tonight - two tee shirts and a twelve-inch figure.

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