Hollywood

For reasons only known by those that organised it, today was planned to visit Hollywood and walk down Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame. 

I say this because it is nearly a 2 hour trip in this horrendous traffic to travel 62 Km

The kids were about as interested as a sleeping dog would be interested in a passing cat, but we mananaged to get them to stay off Snapchat for 30-45 minutes whilst we walked looking at the stars in the pavement and the weirdos that make Hollywood famous. 

We eventually turned the corner and went down Hollywood Boulevard towards the famous Kodak Theatre as named by Tracy. (It was so famous that I had never heard of it by that name.)

This certainly taught the kids that their dad did actually know what he was talking about sometimes. 

We were about halfway down when we can across some characters dressed as Superman and Spider-Man. 

Grabbing the two boys that asked if they wanted some photos. 

Boys: Yeah ok

Me: NO

Boys: Why not?

Superheroes: Yeah - why not?

Me: NO!

Superheroes: C’mon just.......

Me: NO!

Boys: Why not

Me: Fine.... whipping out iPhone, takes two quick blurry photos

Superheroes: well done mate..... $10 each thanks. 

Me: Pi## off. That’s why I said no. 

The next 200 metres and 3 minutes had the superheroes being super dicks and accosting us and even grabbing the boys arms at one stage until I threatened them that I would take off my shirt and become the incredible blob and squash them both if they didn’t leave us alone. 

I think the boys now understand why I told them not to say yes to anyone for anything. 

Turns out I had the last laugh. The pictures weren’t blurry at all. 

The kids were reasonably shaken over the whole ordeal, so we got in the car and went exploring. 

We went to Mulholland drive and found a couple of lookouts where we could see the famous Hollywood sign and overlooking the rest of Hollywood. 

I wanted to see some of the famous million dollar streets, but quickly became lost ( which of course was 100% due to Tracy’s navigating 😎)

We finally managed to find our way to the famous Beverly Hills sign where we took a couple of photos and then decided that we really needed to start making our way home. 

My advice now - NEVER try to leave Hollywood after 4:30 if you need to go to the other side of LA. 

We tried a couple of alternate routes that according to Apple Maps would save us 5 minutes rather than going via the freeway 

This couldn’t have been more wrong. There must have been two million cars trying to pass through the same 200 sets of traffic lights up one way roads that had signals only letting 5 cars through at a time. I will NEVER complain about Adelaide traffic again ( ok I probably will, but this was just insane). 

After about 90 minutes, I managed to get onto a freeway ramp, only to be stopped instantly in line with the other 3 million cars that were trying to go out of LA. After much swearing and frustration and another 60 minutes , I finally reached our exit ramp - and drove straight past it. (Insert multiple expletives here). 

6 lanes of traffic - all of them basically stopped. 

We still had to get something for tea, and with my bladder fuller than the Nile River st the end of Winter, I left Tracy and the kids at the shop while I ran home avoiding a burst kidney by about 5 seconds.