Hollywood

23/03/12-25/03/12

Before leaving San Diego we drive around the bay to the headline on the other side to take in the views of the city as well as the distant coastline of Mexico. Moving on we hit the Interstate to take us back north to Los Angeles where we have another two night stopover. Our hostel is located right on Hollywood Boulevard so after arriving in the afternoon we quickly hit the streets to walk down towards where I stayed nearly a week before hand. Only a few blocks away from our accommodation we pick up the start of the Hollywood Walk of Frame and followed it right down to its conclusion nearly 2 miles down. Of course most of the walk was done with our gaze fixed firmly at the ground as we periodically shout out the names of stars we recognise even if we can’t remember what they had actually been in. We do the same on the other side whilst stopping off to grab photos at the Chinese Theatre of all the famous hand prints in the concrete.

To make the most of our one full day in LA we book up two tours so we can see the most of the Hollywood area. The first one is on an open top bus as it dashes us around the nearby streets to see all sorts of famous buildings connected with the stars, our guide doesn’t have time to pause for a breath as he continuously feeds information to us. Our next tour in the afternoon is around the Beverly Hills area, this is where all the famous stars have their big Hollywood mansions. It is like entering a completely different universe; expensive cars line the streets and each building is bigger and more flasher than the one next to it. We see various homes of big stars but unfortunately we don’t get to see any of them in the flesh, but it is a real insight into the lives of others.

The next day we wake up to dull skies as light rain drenches the city, despite the weather we make our way up to the Griffith Observatory to try and get views across the city but with the rain visibility is heavily reduced, the Hollywood sign can only just be seen in the distance. Leaving grey LA and California behind us we make our way east towards our next state – Nevada. Almost as soon as we join the Interstate going eastwards the scenery completely changes, we are now in desert country. Barren stretches of vast sand spill out either side of us, before man ventured over to the Pacific Coast the whole of California use to be the same terrain. To break up the journey for lunch we stop off at the ghost town of Calico, a former silver mining town in the desert. Much of it has now been reconstructed apart from the five original buildings that remained but to me it all felt very false, almost like a theme park done in an old western town style – interesting none the less. Later on we finally crossed the state border to Nevada to be instantly greeted by a large casino complex. That evening we finally made it to our destination for the night, Circus Circus hotel and casino complex rooted in the middle of the Las Vegas strip. Instantly we were thrown into the chaos of Vegas as hundreds of people where making their way through the casino. After checking in for the evening we grabbed some food before having our first gamble on the slot machines, after making our money back we happily retreated back to our room for the night. Vegas would have to wait; we had another grander sight to see first.