A Sampling of the Hundreds of RVs Camping Along the PCH
“The beaches at Malibu are neither white nor as wide as the beach at Carmel. The hills are scrubby and barren, infested with bikers and rattlesnakes, scarred with cuts and old burns and new R.V. parks. For these and other reasons Malibu tends to astonish and disappoint those who have never seen it, and yet its very name remains, in the imagination of people all over the world, a kind of shorthand for the easy life. I had not before 1971 and will probably not again live in a place with a Chevrolet named after it.” — Joan Didion, The White Album
The Beach where Jim Rockford Parked his Trailer
Grace and Frankie’s Beach House
View from Our Hotel
I really liked LA, although Babs didn’t like the area we stayed in (Hollywood). I went for a run along Franklin Ave and the nabes got nicer and nicer with each block. I think I saw 5 people on the sidewalk and half of those were gardeners/lawn care people. I really get the sense that LA actually still has some ethnic neighborhoods and restaurants, unlike NY which has been completely homogenized (at least Manhattan and Brooklyn). We had the best sushi ever at a place around the corner from our hotel, Sushi of Gari (and they have 5 restaurants in NYC so we plan on eating there again).
Side Street Off Franklin Ave in Hollywood
We hit the Griffith Observatory, which turned out to be really, really interesting. We figured we’d park (huge hassle), take a few photos with the famous sign in the background and leave. Instead, we ended up spending two hours inside and even our teenager was engaged.
Downtown Viewed from the Griffith Observatory
Money Shot (Hollywood Sign in the Background)
Angels Flight
The View from Angels Flight
Cool Neon Advertising in the Grand Central Market
This place was a few blocks from our hotel on Hollywood Boulevard and it’s every bit as creepy and disturbing as the name suggests. And the employees looked pretty much as you’d expect. The museum is an homage to all means and methods of terminal dispatch. Serial killers (along with their artwork and correspondence), death cults, mass murderers (only the interesting ones), and the various methods of capital punishment employed throughout the ages (including photographs and very vivid descriptions) are all well represented. A loop of an 80’s era documentary on serial killers played in the room dedicated to those characters, another in the execution room, and in the area set aside for death-related tackle (coffins, mortician gear, etc.) an instructional video on the embalming of a corpse, complete with the details of how to select and insert artificial eyeballs. Our daughter loved it.
Museum of Death
History