Day 15. Lompoc to Los Angeles (Hollywood). Friday 3rd January

With a traditional American breakfast on offer at the hotel, we chose wisely and had cereal, fruit & a couple of pancakes each and left all the muffins and sweet cakes for the Yanks.
The borrowed GPS has been very useful. It doesn't seem to have a 'stay on the main highway mode' and it wants us to experience roads that not many other tourists would travel on by taking the shortest routes. We continued the drive south mainly along Highway 1 with a few 'shortcut' detours through suburbs and areas that made the drive more interesting and added to our experience. Andrew has been very adept at picking up the various road rules and keeping to the right side of the road. He has had to stop and think a couple of times when he's been turning a corner though. Not far out of LA we went through the suburban streets in Malibu and the kids got their first chance at celebrity spotting. We were especially looking for Tony Stark's little house to pop in for a cuppa. It was very foggy and the beaches were endless. There were some very huge houses on the hillsides and we could only imagine who lived in them. As we approached LA the traffic got understandably busier and we were changing on and off different freeways. We finally entered Beverly Hills and recognised several  street names from tv shows. We arrived at the Hollywood Celebrity Hotel at 2pm and after taking the hire car back, close by, and dumping the bags we hit Hollywood Boulevard. After grabbing a bite to eat at the Snow White Café (which looked more like Maleficent's dungeon) we walked along the Hollywood Walk of Fame looking at the Stars, stars, and went to Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum. We spent some time outside the front of the Chinese Theatre looking at all of the hand and footprints of stars from the past and then made our way to Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum. These 2 museums were high on the kids agenda so we wanted to make sure we got them in. The wax figures were amazing and the kids had great fun going from one celebrity to the next and posing with them. They thought Ripley's was amazing and oooohhhed, aaahhhhed and spouted words of wisdom such as 'oh, gross', 'no way' 'oh my god' and 'ohhhhhhhh' as they made their way around. It was dark by the time we had finished and the street was a little less busy. We walked the couple of minutes back to our hotel and started planning our next few days in LA. Alas, no celebrities today though.



Driving into the fog

Dumb and Dumber?!

Lights, Camera, Action

My hero (swoon)

The usual suspects.

Lights of Hollywood