Up In The “Hills”…!

It should be the title of a new Hollywood production, a movie, or even better, a reality TV show like those that are so “en vogue” at the present time.

But it is not, “Up In The Hills” is a one word summary of what An Italian Across America has been up to today.

We started this morning by checking out at the hotel, and loading the car in the same religious order we’ve been following for these past 64 days, making sure that nothing would show up from under the deep blue blanket (one of those that you “borrow” on any intercontinental flights”) that has been such a trusted companion for all of these days.

We initially planned on visiting the USS Midway, and many other things, but then we gave up and decided to drive south on I-5 towards the Border with Mexico.

I told you yesterday about the reading I’ve done, and those pictures that fascinated me (the Bull Fighting Arena in particular) from the very first time I saw them; we had to go!

The place we were looking for is called “Border Field Park” (very original name…), but guess what, it is only open on Saturdays and Sundays, plus holidays. The GPS told me that the water, and consequently the commemorative monument erected between these two countries was only another mile away from where we were presently standing, and so we decided to give it a try.

The weather has been always very pleasant, and today was no exception.

We were initially confused as to where to go, as there is really no marked path to follow to get to the Monument, but then eventually we got on the right track, and started walking; I would say, roughly we did about 1.5 miles each way if not more, but again, thanks to the nice Pacific Breeze, we made it!

I could see the Arena in Tijuana from the Parking Lot where we left the car, that was a big incentive to us, and after all, we went on top of a mountain to see the Medicine Wheel, we can also walk three miles on the sand (mixed with asphalt) to see the Monument, the “Fence”, and the Arena!

And so we did!

Here’s a picture of the Arena:

Here’s a picture of the Monument:

Here’s a picture of the impressive fence (I wonder why we didn’t find the same thing up north at the border with Canada! LOL):

And this is a picture to show how the fence goes straight in the Pacific Ocean:

We also chatted for a while with a Border Patrol Officer. She was there with her binoculars, and we asked her what would have been the best way to get back to the car (since we were tired and didn’t want to go back the same way!), she told us exactly what we didn’t want to hear, the way back was exactly the same way we got there! LOL

Hap wanted a picture with her, and so, here it is, for all of you to see:

We left the parking lot at around 1.30PM and headed towards Los Angeles, CA where we arrived around 4PM. Traffic wasn’t so bad until we started hitting the L.A. Metropolitan area 30 something miles away from downtown, that’s when things started to get a little nasty.

Traffic in Los Angeles really stinks, there’s no other way to put it.

Just to give you an idea, this is how bad traffic was this afternoon before rush hour!

This time I also managed to get a nice shot of the Los Angeles City Limit road sign:

And I also got a very nice picture of the Los Angeles skyline:

Our first stop had to be Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive.

I swear I’ve never seen such a high concentration of exotic cars, like this one (a yellow taxi Rolls Royce) parked on Rodeo Drive:

And also, I would like to remind the guys reading the blog that a diamond is forever, buy one at this local shop and tell them I sent you! ;-)

We also went around Beverly Hills to try to see if we could find some of the VIPs’ houses, and we did, thanks to the map that our friends Frank and Bob gave us a few days ago in Palm Springs.

We saw the houses of Bill Cosby, Barbra Streisand, and Tom Cruise, just to name a few, drove around the “Hills” to admire such a high concentration of expensive “everything”, and then went on to our next stop, Melrose Place!

I don’t about you, but when I was a teenager, I was crazy about the TV Show (Melrose Place), and so was my brother, so I had to physically get there and snap a picture of street sign to remember the old days:

We then went to Beachwood Drive, which is the best way to have a nice view of the Hollywood Sign.

Here are some shots of the sign:

And another one:

On the way to Beachwood Drive we also managed to drive on Historical Route 66 for a short time, and here’s the proof of this achievement:

After that, we decided it was time to get to the Hotel (very close to downtown), and we did that by going through “Koreatown” with its many signs in Korean that I truly love (I don’t know why, but I think that Korean letters are very stylish).

Here's another one:

This evening we settled for a nice hamburger after the three wonderful dinners we had with our friends Steve and JR in San Diego. Not exactly the quality of food we’ve been used to for this past three days, but not even that bad either.

After dinner we decided to take a stroll down Santa Monica Boulevard, then hopped in the car, and went to Hollywood Boulevard, to see the Kodak Theater, the Grauman’s Chinese Theater (Spectacular to say the least), and the most famous Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Tomorrow is going to be a relatively easy day for us; as soon as we check out, we will try to go back on Hollywood Boulevard and take some pictures over there of the Theaters, and the Walk of Fame. After that, we will start our journey East, the last of four legs on this trip!

This is not the end, but it is definitely getting closer and closer, and I still can’t believe how time has gone by so fast!

Tomorrow we will probably stop in Ridgecrest, CA for the night, as we get ready to drive through the Death Valley to reach Las Vegas, NV and its zillion lights and casinos, on the evening of the 3rd.

Sounds like we’re up for some fun!

And now I’m ready to go to bed, we had quite an interesting day!

Good night my friends,
Nico