August 14, 2008: Warner Bros Studios and the Craig Ferguson Show

All right, so I'm a "wee" bit behind in finishing off this trip blog. Sigh. The last two days in L.A. were ultra-busy and I kept saying I'd finish as soon as I got home, and, well...you know. But I was just looking at the photos again and remembering how much fun we had during the Warner Bros tour, so I finally got my butt in gear. So here's the play-by-play of what happened on our second-to-last day in California:

In the pic above, Sarah is standing in front of the hilltop Griffith Observatory, which apparently has lovely exhibits related to astronomy and myriad matters celestial, but we'll never know, because the damned guidebook got the opening hours WRONG! So much for our plan to check it out before our scheduled tour at the Warner Brothers Studio lot. The outside was kinda cool to look at though - the building has been featured in many films, from "Rebel Without a Cause" and "The Terminator", to that seminal cultural touchstone, "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle."

As we wound our way back down the hill, I managed to impress the heck out of Sarah with my uncanny ability to locate sources of really good food in the unlikeliest of places. I'd spotted a pie stand on the way up and insisted we try some on the way back down. After all, it was almost time for "elevensies". Let me go on record as saying the "Trails" cafe near Griffith Park has THE. MOST. AWESOMEST PIE. EVER. Note Sarah's soul-crushing disappointment at having finished most of hers. She had apple. I had strawberry-rhubarb. It was all home-made and still warm. The cafe is right in the middle of the park and they have tables under big leafy trees. Perfect.

As we continued our journey, I had a momentary thrill when I spotted a whole bunch of firetrucks parked by the road. Everyone knows I LOVE firefighters. Sadly, there were none in sight. It seems they park the rigs throughout the usual hotspots in L.A., so that if there's a wildfire, the crews already have their vehicles in place without having to battle L.A. traffic to get there. Sensible, yet disappointing on a deeply visceral level.

While doing our pre-trip info gathering, I discovered that there are many "studio" tours offered in L.A., but the one that comes most highly recommended is the Warner Bros Studio tour. It's not cheap ($45) per person, but definitely worth it. They take you around in small groups (10 people) for about 2 hours. Tickets are best ordered in advance because they often sell out. The whole adventure begins with a brief video introduction in a screening room and then everyone piles into one of those canopied golf cart thingees that seats 12. Our guide was yet another screenwriter/script editor in the making and was full of interesting anecdotes about the back lot and the shows/movies that have been filmed there.

Sarah's a real "Gilmore Girls" fan, and was excited to see the outdoor facades for Lorelai and Suki's homes. She actually managed to convince our guide to take us through the garage out back to see the "front" of Lorelai's home, which crew were in the process of cleaning out. It's actually a single structure, with two "fronts", so they can film on either side.

Construction crews were also in the process of rebuilding the town square from "Ghost Whisperer". The original set had been at Universal Studios and had burnt down in a recent fire. You can find all the pics on my Flickr page.

The generic "downtown, big city" street set is used for lots of movies and TV shows, including "ER" and the "Spiderman" movies. While we were listening to the guide's descriptions, the actor who plays Dr. Archie Grimes (Scott Morris) on ER pedalled by on his bike. They were in the middle of shooting the first few episodes of the last season of ER. We also got an up-close look at the "Central Perk" set from "Friends". It's amazing how much smaller the sets are in real life. They're also constructed to be much more shallow because depth of field is so exaggerated on camera.

The tour ended with a brief visit to their historical collection housed in the on-site Warner Bros museum. I wish we'd had more time, because they have the actual costumes from many of their big Oscar-winning productions and well-known television shows. Several of the actual Oscar statuettes were also on display. I got to try on the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter. All good - I ended up in Gryffindor :)

After our tour, we rushed downtown to the NBC studios so that we could be members of a "live studio audience" at the Craig Ferguson Late Late Show (yes, that's two "lates", as they kept reminding us). Very entertaining, in that it provided a behind-the-scenes look at more of the fakery involved in creating television in Hollywood. The first guest had been filmed the night before, so we were asked to provide thunderous applause for Craig's monologue and a video bit he taped in advance. He's very good at playing to the camera. And that pretty much ended our Hollywood-immersion day in L.A. THE END.

August 13, 2008: Los Angeles - Hollywood

You cannot do Los Angeles without taking a "Homes of the Stars" tour. That's the rule. And apparently Starline are the pros at this kind of thing, so off we went in the comfy white van with the tinted windows. Our guide wasted no time in telling us that, like everyone else under 30 in this town, he was "trying to break into the business" and had an audition for Letterman in two days - as a "human beatbox", a talent he proceeded to demonstrate as he tore up Sunset Strip.

The whole thing is highly entertaining (provided your irony switch is fully in the "on" position) - even though all you get to see of most of the homes is a brief glimpse of a door through heavy security gates (as was the case with JLo's house in the pic). But what had Sarah and me in total stitches /shock was when our driver spotted a parade of expensive cars winding up the canyon ahead of us. In an attempt to impress the cute blonde teenage girls at the front of the van, he announced he was going to follow the cars, because "he had a sense for this kind of thing, and there was definitely someone famous in there." And thus we formed this bizarre, surreal little caravan: two black Escalades, a Jaguar, another two black Escalades and us (the white Econoline van)- racing up the twists and turns of Beverly Hills. Of course, they eventually disappeared through a large gate manned by burly security guards who made it clear with hand gestures that we were not welcome. I sense that the Human Beatbox has a future as a paparazzo. Dejected, he then returned to his regularly scheduled route.

Continuing the fully immersive Hollywood experience, we then walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard to look at the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's apparently not that hard to get one: you need to have been famous for at least five years; someone needs to submit a nomination letter on your behalf (probably your manager); you need to write the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce a cheque for $25,000. And voilà - you get a star.

Mann's Chinese Theatre is one of those tourist-mecca nodes on Hollywood Boulevard where the bodies are packed in like sardines. But really, how could we resist? Especially when the George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon hand and footprints had just recently gone on display. My favourite, though, were the Japanese school girls in full-on Harry Potter paraphernalia, posing next to the Daniel Radcliffe imprints.

It's the quintessential All-American pop culture experience. Equal parts commerce, fantasy and anticipation - with a dark undercurrent. Wandering amongst the throngs of tourists were costumed street entertainers trying to earn tips by posing for photos, street people selling maps to the stars' homes for one dollar, and the constant honking of horns from angry motorists trying to beat the traffic. And on every available flat surface, advertisements for the next big movie.

August 12, 2008: Los Angeles

The Ambrose hotel has really, really good croissants for breakfast. REALLY good. Just thought everyone should know that.

Then we headed off to check out Venice Beach. Depending on your perspective, it's either charmingly bohemian, or a total dump. I tend toward the latter. Lots of cheap T-shirts, knock-off sunglasses and rusted out, abandoned stalls.

Lots of people swimming and surfing, though. And the Venice "canals" were quite lovely. A few blocks away from the craziness of the boardwalk, these artificial waterways are fronted by million dollar homes with beautiful gardens. You can walk along the sides of the canals and cross over the water on a series of little bridges.

Thanks to Steve Karpik for his suggestion to visit the La Brea Tar Pits. Totally fascinating. Due to all the seismic activity in the Los Angeles area, deposits of oil deep underground have been bubbling to the surface and gelling into a thick, treacherous goo for over 42,000 years. Animals would enter the pits intending to drink the water on the surface, only to become trapped in the tar and die.

The first thing you see when you arrive at the museum is the charming tableau in the picture above. Near as Sarah and I could figure, "Daddy" mastodon has become ensnared while the "Mommy" and "Baby" mastodons (mastodii?) look on helplessly in sheer terror. Yikes. How many innocent school children have been traumatized by this little study in prehistoric mayhem? It was extremely disturbing. Or at least I thought so. Sarah was busy being fascinated by the way the Daddy Mastodon's motorized head was swiveling around.

The trauma continued in the Tar Pits welcome centre, where we were treated to an intro movie that featured an animated sequence in which a horse gets trapped in the tar, is set upon by a nasty sabre-tooth who also gets sucked in, at which point they're both attacked by a pack of snarling wolves who made the mistake of joining the party...well, before long the three-year-old sitting next to us started whimpering.

Awesome animatronic displays. Note the sabre-tooth taking on the ancient ground sloth in the pic at right. Lots of growly noises and head-swiveling. They also had a really fascinating viewing area where visitors can watch paleontologists working on "Pit 91", removing fossils from a still-active tar deposit. Plus they waived Sarah's entrance fee for being a teacher and I got in free for working for the Science Centre. This museum gets an A+ in my books. Fun all around :) Hate to say it, but the Los Angeles County Museum of Art right next door positively paled in comparison, despite the stunning collection of 17th century art glass.

Tomorrow we see the homes of the stars!

August 11, 2008: Palm Springs to L.A.

Date palms were introduced to the Palm Springs area in 1890 as an experiment.

Palm Springs provides 90% of all dates consumed by Americans.

A mature date palm can produce up to 135 kg of dates per year.

All this and more we learned from the very informative displays at Shields Date Farm, where they take their dates very, very seriously. I had no idea there were so many types: Deglets, Medjools, Honey, Abbada, Barhi, Halawi...they had them all.

I tried the date ice cream, which tasted remarkably like, well...vanilla ice cream with dates in it. I should have gone for the date milkshake, which I was told is "world famous". I suspect it tastes like dates, too. I couldn't resist buying some the Medjool dates stuffed with marzipan and pecans. Sarah, however, went for the really healthy grapefruit juice. What fun is that? She had to suffer through my ensuing sugar high and subsequent crash as punishment :P

We waved goodbye to Palm Springs and three hours of the I-10 West later, arrived in Santa Monica. We're staying at the Ambrose, a lovely hotel that evokes Frank Lloyd Wright and Art Deco. They get top marks for the Aveda bath products, too. After checking in, we had the free shuttle service drop us off at the pier, a Santa Monica landmark and tourist magnet.

Fantastic atmosphere - this is one of the images we had in our heads about what L.A. should be...beach, throngs of people and amazing sunsets. Sarah tells me this is where they filmed Baywatch. She should know, being a huge Hoff fan, and all.

We finished off our first day in L.A. with Mexican food on Main Street in Santa Monica. Fish tacos and guacamole. And some truly excellent home-made limeade.

August 10, 2008: Palm Canyon and Rancho Mirage

Palm Canyon is considered the world's largest native California Fan Palm oasis. It's located on land that belongs to the Agua Caliente band of the Cahuilla Indians, who have lived in the canyon for close to 2000 years.

Sarah and I went hiking in the canyon this morning. Although we tried to beat the heat by getting up early, it was close to 109 degrees by the time we reached the entrance of the canyon.

The oasis is an amazing swatch of green in an otherwise sparse desert landscape and stretches for miles into the mountains. All along the trail you can see spots where the hot springs bubble to the surface and form a marshy stream along which the palms grow. These specimens are the "California Redwoods" of palm trees. Huge...and incredibly hardy. Many of them have blackened trunks we thought were caused by lightening strikes, but it turns out the palms survived a massive fire in 1980, started by two boys with matches in a nearby field. The main trail runs for 17 miles, but we settled for a shorter 1.5 mile loop that pretty much did us in anyway...the climb up the final staircase to the visitors' centre bordered on tragic.

In the afternoon, we dropped by the Palm Springs Museum of Art (Admission: $12, unless it's August, in which case it's free! Because only crazy people go to Palm Springs in August!) and enjoyed the art and industrial strength air conditioning. This has to be the fourth museum we've encountered that's currently featuring a Frida Kahlo exhibit. She and Dale Chihuly seem to be the reigning California pop culture "it" artists of the moment.

The afternoon was spent poking around Rancho Mirage; we checked out the local shopping mall and stocked up on take-out from the Cheesecake Factory (third time this trip...white chocolate caramel macadamia nut has become a favourite, although Sarah is partial to the Oreo chocolate fudge slide :)

I love the way classic 1950s kitsch collides with ultra-money excess in Rancho Mirage. Next to the Rancho Super Wash was the River Mall, where we found a golf cart dealership that featured customized models in a whole variety of colours. Next door was the cosmetic surgery clinic (yup, in the mall) where no appointment was necessary for Restylane and Botox touch-ups. From a design stand-point, the mall was gorgeous. It did create the illusion of floating on a river...in the middle of a desert - which is pretty much what Palm Springs and the neighbouring desert cities are all about.

August 9, 2008: Palm Springs

Yup. It's an oven. Our rental car has an external temperature display, and today it read 98 degrees Fahrenheit at 9:30 am. So, of course, the logical thing would be to visit an outdoor botanical garden called "The Living Desert". Where you can wander for miles. On foot. With no shade. In 100+ degree heat. And look at exhibits containing desert animals who are being sensible and hiding from view in shady, cool burrows.

Actually, it was pretty cool...they had an impressive display in the cactus garden and we dropped by the rehabilitation centre for injured desert animals, where an abandoned desert fox pup was busy ignoring about 20 store-bought toys and chasing a piece of crumpled paper around his pen instead. The botanical garden also sells plants and trees to the locals and has an enormous selection of cactus species to choose from. The citizens of Palm Springs have obviously been taking advantage of the offerings. This entire area is a testament to the well-heeled residents' ongoing, obsessive struggle against nature and the elements. It's bizarre to see so many perfectly manicured green lawns and golf courses in the middle of the desert. And in Rancho Mirage (where our hotel is located), just outside of Palm Springs, the city has sunk a fortune into landscaping. They've even got floral displays on the highway medians. The stretch between Frank Sinatra Drive and Bob Hope Avenue is particularly impressive :)

The stretch of desert just to the west of Palm Springs is a complete contrast. No landscaping visible here, but you will find a seemingly endless sea of wind turbines. There are 3647 of them, to be exact. Back in the 1980s, the State of California offered tax incentives to local residents if they invested in wind-generated energy. For $25,000 you could "buy" a turbine and get a $50,000 tax credit. Pretty sweet. Apparently, the high income earners in Palm Springs were all over this idea and within 10 years, thousands of the 90 metre-high towers were erected. They've since halted any new tower additions, but the Palm Springs turbines currently provide 2% of all electricity on the south-west American grid.

To escape the heat, Sarah and I headed up the Aerial Tramway at Mount San Jacinto. From the base just outside of Palm Springs, the tram cars go up about 1800 metres to the summit, where the temperature drops about 30 degrees F. The trams cars are designed to rotate 360 degrees during the journey, which is somewhat disorienting, but gives you a spectacular view of the valley and surrounding mountains.

We were lucky to arrive just as a ranger-guided nature hike was starting. Lucky, because I'm convinced we would have been lost within minutes. The trails all criss-cross up there, and don't seem to be terribly well-marked. And "Ranger Art" did a really nice job of pointing out interesting info concerning the flora and fauna. The tree in the pic is a Jeffrey's Pine; he had us all sniff the bark, which smells like butterscotch.

It was a shock to the system back at the bottom of the mountain. Our car had been baking in the parking lot for three hours and required maximum application of air conditioning. We'd saved Joshua Tree National Monument for later in the day because I wanted to take photos when the light was better. It's about 90 minutes from Palm Springs to the park entrance and we arrived around 4:30. No crowds at all, which was really nice. Just us and a whole lot of Joshua Trees, which we learned are not trees at all, but a type of shrub.

We decided to try the "Hidden Valley" hike, a 1.5 mile loop that takes you through a box canyon used by cattle rustlers in the 1800s to hide stolen herds. The rock formations and vegetation are incredible, you feel like you're on the set of a classic Western. And the late afternoon sun gave everything a golden glow. In addition, the desert creatures were making an appearance as dusk approached - fortunately, we didn't spot any of the rattlesnakes the signs kept warning us about. But we did get to see lots of lizards and bunnies :)

Lots more pics of Joshua Tree on my Flickr page.

August 8, 2008: Santa Barbara

The old mission in Santa Barbara is known as the "Queen of California Missions" - founded in 1786 by Spanish Franciscans, it was part of Spain's plan to solidify control over this part of the North American continent. The church in the first photo is actually the third structure on the site, built after the previous two were destroyed by earthquakes.

We also toured the Santa Barbara city hall, which is beautifully decorated with Spanish tiles and ceramics. You can climb to the top of the clock tower and get a magnificent view of the the entire city, including the harbour and mission district. Lots more photos of both the Mission and City Hall on my Flickr page.

The most striking part of Santa Barbara is the abundance of beautiful gardens and elaborate streetscaping. There are tropical plants, flowers and trees everywhere. The city has also initiated a program to fill the streets with public art - an example in the pic below. We stopped at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and took in a wonderful special exhibition called "Made in Hollywood: Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation". About 40 portraits and set shots from the 1940s and 50s were on display - some of the iconic photos depicted Marlon Brando, Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor, and so on. Many of the negatives from the collection were re-printed as platinum prints just for this exhibition.

It was impossible to leave Santa Barbara without checking out State Street, the famous shopping and pedestrian district. Think Yorkville, only with better foliage. There are dozens of cafes and outdoor restaurants and endless little alleys filled with incredibly expensive shopping. I consumed what was probably one of the best cheese danishes I've ever had a little bakery and then we climbed into the car for our trek to Palm Springs.

The drive was supposed to take about 3 hours, but lasted about five, due to the INSANE traffic through L.A. We were both in cranky mode by the time we arrived in Palm Springs, but the hotel cheered us up. VERY nice. And swanky. And strangely cheap. We discovered why when the hotel clerk asked us what we were planning to do. When we answered "hiking", he just raised both eyebrows. It turns out it was 102 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday. And my friends know how much I LOVE the heat. This is definitely the "low" season in Palm Springs. We seem to be two of about 10 people in the hotel. But we are determined to conquer the elements :P