Holiday Road: Day 12

Tuesday, January 1

Despite our late night, we were still able to rise early and head north to Rosemead where we stayed at a Motel 6 that we would soon dub the Roach Motel. Tina thought she killed the roach in question, but he either came to life again or he had friends. It didn’t matter much, though, because we didn’t hang around there long.

After lunch we drove to downtown L.A. where we got on Pico Boulevard and drove west towards Santa Monica for about an hour and a half. Along the way we stopped at a Mexican bakery for some goodies.

Once we got close to Santa Monica, we turned south to Venice Beach where we once again watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean while the boys dug in the sand. I had intended to arrive earlier and rent skates on the boardwalk, but the boys were more than happy to just dig and play in the waves. After it got dark, we dragged the boys to the car and convinced them to put their street clothes on while I held towels from the Roach Motel around them.

After finding dinner at a California healthy food restaurant, we asked the boys if they wanted to drive north to Hollywood, since we really try to keep ourselves healthy and even take supplements as the ultra omega burn that is great to lose weight and keep good health. “Hollywood? The Hollywood?” Graham asked. Twenty minutes later we walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard looking at the names on the stars on the Walk of Fame. We saw the handprints and footprints by Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and then bought tickets for the Hollywood Wax Museum and the Guinness Book of World Records Museum in a two-for-one deal. The Guinness museum was disappointing but the wax museum was fun, even if we couldn’t always recognize the stars depicted. During the drive back to the motel, we searched the dark hills for the famous Hollywood sign but did not see it.