LA Part 2 & The Ride Into Vegas!

LA Day 2

Started the day by hunting for the Hollywood sign. We found the best location after following all the "No Hollywood Sign Access" and "Do No Enter" signs we could find. At one point we also stumbled upon a guy who was enlisted by his film crew to block a road that apparently led to the original Bat Cave from the 60's era Batman movie.

After the Hollywood sign it was off to the Griffith Observatory. This place has a lot of history, it was one of the first public observatories. The intro movie at the observatory was narrated by Leonard Nimoy, the theater was also named after him. We also saw the most functional sundial I've ever seen, I want one for my future back yard.

Hungry, we did some research and found that LA has a farmers market a few miles away. After driving in traffic we arrived at this "farmers market". Wow, never go here. It's basically a mall food court with some open air fruit stands. Needless to say, we did not stay very long. Starving now, we quickly found some pizza elsewhere and got on our way to the beach.

So, the beach is only 15 miles away from where we were…. but it took us about an hour & 15 minutes to get there! LA Traffic. Took just as long to get back.

Final stop of the day was for dinner at the Red Lion, a German bar and restaurant, where we enjoyed some Bratwurst, sauerkraut, and a dark German Doppelbock beer, Spaten Optimator, which we nick named Optimus Prime! Tasty end to the day!!

Special thanks to Shane, Katie and their roommates for allowing to stay at their place!!

The Drive To Vegas - Joshua Tree National Park

We took a little detour South to Joshua Tree Nation Park on our ride to Vegas. This park has very unique trees and rock formations. The trees I can only describe as desert palm trees, and the rock formations look like crumbling mountains. Very neat, check out the pictures below.

We also passed salt flats on the way: