Vegas

It's said what happens in Vegas stays there... but I think I can tell you a little.

We stayed at the newest and one of the nicest hotel casinos on the strip, Aria, located next to the Bellagio and close to everything. Cool features included automated lights and curtains in the room all controlled by a computer in the room. Two friends from back home, Santino & Bracken, also flew out to meet us!

We went to various comedy shows, including one at the Playboy Comedy Club and another at a Variety Club.

We went to the set of one my favorite shows "Pawn Stars".

Limo rides to various clubs.

We even had time for some art & the Atomic Testing Museum

What a weekend!

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:

Los Angeles Part 1

LA started with us arriving Shane's (Kyle's cousin) house in the Los Feliz area of West Hollywood. Shane currently had friends taping a webisode in his living room, so we quickly dropped our bags off and followed Shane on a tour of the area. We found ourselves at a place called "Best FishTacos", and I agree, they were pretty darn good. After we went over a place referred to as "The Pub" where we had a few beers and met up with my friend Jake who works for the Los Angeles Film School and promised us a tour for the next day.

This morning we went into the Hollywood area to do the touristy things. We met up with Kyle's friend Dan and his girlfriend Tania, who are also on a cross-country road trip, only they stated in Florida! We were all hungry so we found Umami Burger. This place was a little on the pricy side at $10 for a burger and $3.50 for fries, but, for $14 they offer a combo meal that includes their Umami burger, fries, and a Nakhon beer from Thailand. The burger was cooked to perfection, they claimed all their burgers are cooked medium rare, but I would more accurately place the temp at medium… just right in my book. The burger comes served with Shiitake mushrooms, caramelized onions, sun-dried tomatoes, and a little of their homemade ketchup.

Umami Burger is right down the street from the Los Angeles Film School, so we decided to hit there next. I sent Jake a text and in we went. The tour of the school, which is partly the old RCA building, was really cool and much more than I expected. Jake first brought us to the 9th floor for a great view of the city, this floor was also empty so students can create sets when required. We then went to a sound stage that consisted of various rooms created to look like the interior of a nice house, it even had a porch overlooking a giant painted skyline. After, we walked into Elvis' old recording studio, which has now been updated with modern equipment, but still appears as it did when Elvis performed. Finally, Jake showed us the school's THX certified theater in all its 16 speaker glory, the location where Nickelodeon animators made all the episodes of Rugrats and where the first three seasons of The Simpsons were animated. Thanks for the tour Jake!

Next we walked over Grauman's Chinese Theatre to check out the star's shoe & hand prints. It was here

we also got tickets to see a taping of Minute to Win It with Guy Fieri! The taping was at 5:00PM, but we had about 2 1/2 hours to kill, so we decided to drive over to the Getty Museum first. Unfortunately, we didn't know how big this museum was and how much we had to see. It was packed with all kinds of great paintings, photography, and sculptures. We ended up staying until 5:30, missing the taping of Minute to Win It. We'll find another show tomorrow.

Final place we went to tonight was Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) for an improv comedy show entitled Facebook staring Rob Riggle, Rob Hubel, and another comedian who's name escapes me right now. During the show, the comedians pick random people from the audience and have them log-on to their Facebook pages. Once on their Facebook page, the comedians ask questions about various pictures and wall posts after which they create a hilarious improv comedy skit based on the answers given by the audience member. I wish we had something like this near my apartment in Philly, I would go every week! After the show, we were treated to a sneak peak of an episode of the HBO series, Funny or Die, staring one of the comedians and Ben Stiller.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Pacific Coast Highway to Los Angeles

Pictures from our drive down California State Route 1, The Pacific Coast Highway, from San Francisco to Los Angeles

Glass house on top of a hill over looking Route 1 & the Pacific Ocean

San Francisco & Silicon Valley

Arriving around midnight in the San Francisco area didn't stop us from going out! We hit Murphy's Law, a bar in the Sunnyvale area. Here we met a guy from New Jersey, Frank, who promised us a tour on the Apple Campus.

Day 1

We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge playing the Full House theme song on our way to Muir Woods. We ended up getting lost in Muir Woods, turns out we walked right out of the park. We didn't realize it until we found another hiker and asked, "Where's the Visitor's Center" his response was, "What visitor center?". He had a map and got us on our way back.

After Muir Woods, we drove into San Francisco to the Fisherman's Wharf area where we found Boudin for some great Sour Dough bread. We had sour-dough bread bowls of soup and a sour-dough pizza.

After eating, we got tea a local tea house then went on the hunt for the Full House, House. We think we found it.

Day 2

Kyle & I drove around the Silicon Valley area to find our favorite internet companies... it was sort of Disney World for us! Also, Frank came through and got us inside the Apple campus!

Special Thanks to Adam & Kevin for allowing us to stay at their place & making us feel at home!