Cali Vacation 2011: Day 2

Hello All,
So on our second day of vacation we ventured into Hollywood to take a tour. We did a City Sightseeing Hop-on and Hop-off tour. We started off at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and drove down Sunset Strip to Rodeo Drive. We then transferred from the Red Line to the Yellow Line to go to Santa Monica Pier and back. Then we transferred again back to the Red Line to tour the rest of Hollywood. Here's some pictures from that day.

I took this picture in front of the Chinese Theatre prior to boarding the bus that morning.

Here's some stars as seen from the tour bus.

This is what Stacy does on vacation....talks on the phone.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Madame Tussaud's Hollywood Wax Museum

The Laugh Factory which happened to be having Tim Allen as a guest that night.

We saw the House of Blues as we walked the Sunset Strip.

One of the guitars as part of the Guitartown on Sunset Strip. The Gibson art guitars celebrate the music scene on the Sunset Strip.

The shop with the striped umbrella is Millions of Milkshakes which is home to the one and only Celebrity GPS. This tells you where Hollywood stars can be found right now in LA.

One of the five Beverly Hills shields that surround the city. By the end of the day we ended up seeing three of the five.

The world famous Rodeo Drive.

They were filming something there as we drove by it twice throughout the day.

This is the Beverly Wilshire that was a part of the movie, Pretty Woman.

When we made our transfer between the Red and Yellow Lines we had to go to Sprinkles Cupcakes. It is only about a block away from Rodeo Drive. It is world famous since it was the very first cupcake bakery. Since I have this thing for cupcakes we of course had to go there.

We each got a different kind of cupcake. From left to right: Stacy got a chocolate marshmallow cupcake, Katie got carrot cupcake, I got a black and white cupcake, and Dad got a red velvet cupcake. I have to say they were delicious. Definitely an experience I was glad to have.

On our way to Santa Monica Pier we passed Fox Studios and I little bit further down the road we saw them setting up for the Golden Globes that happen to be that Sunday.

This is one of the tour buses we rode on throughout the day.

Here's a picture of Santa Monica Pier. After leaving Santa Monica Pier we went through the rest of Santa Monica and headed back to Rodeo Drive through Brentwood and Westwood. We also passed by the cemetery that Marilyn Monroe is buried in.

After transferring back to the Red Line we drove past CBS studios after going around the La Brea Tar Pits.

A true LA experience includes a stop at Pink's Hot Dogs. We were lucky that we got there when we did because they guys ahead of us in line said that it would be crazy busy in an hour or so because everybody would be getting done with work. At Pink's they have one person take your whole party's order and they never write anything down. It was just cool watching them do what they do.

This is the picture of our Pink's hot dogs. Clockwise starting in the top left: Dad's Mullholland Drive Dog (grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, nacho cheese and bacon); Stacy's Mushroom Swiss Dog; Dad's Ozzy Spicy Dog (spicy polish dog topped with nacho cheese, American cheese, grilled onions, guacamole, and diced tomatoes); my Bacon Chili Cheese Dog; Stacy and I's Shrek and Fiona Dog (guacamole and diced tomatoes); and finally Katie's Mullholland Drive Dog. We also got fries and drinks. We all recommend that if you make a trip to Hollywood you should definitely go try Pink's.

After Pink's we got back on the tour bus to head back to Hollywood Blvd. On the way we passed Paramount Studios and the Hollywood Forever cemetery. We made it back to Hollywood Blvd. Stacy and I walked to the other side of the street to get some better pictures of the Kodak Theatre and Grauman's Chinese Theatre. When we made it back in front of Grauman's we found Judy Garland's hand and footprints along with the Harry Potter stars. We drove back to Anaheim and Stacy and I went to spend some time in the hot tub before we went to bed. Hope you enjoyed the pictures of our trip to Hollywood.