Welcome to Hollywood

"Welcome to Hollywood, What's your dream??? Everybody has a dream." This was the opening and closing line in the movie "Pretty Woman". As for Gina and I we are living our dream by traveling this great country of ours.

Before we left California we wanted to take a tour of Hollywood. So Thursday morning we drove up to Hollywood. Here are but a few pictures from our trip. As always if you want to see more pictures just click on any photo and it will bring you to our picasa photo album and then you can see all of the pictures. Here is a direct link to the Hollywood pictures.

The famous Hollywood sign


The plaque explaining the history of the sign


Looking down Hollywood Blvd


Monument at the beginning of the Hollywood "Walk of Fame"

Just to give you a little informaton, there are currently 2,401 stars on Hollywood Blvd and Vine Street. As of 1978 it cost each recipent 25,000 dollars of their money to have a star. They only add 24 stars each year.

I couldn't pass up this star of Ronald Reagan


The view of downtown LA from Hollywood Hills


One of the Streets in Beverly Hills that is lined with Palm trees


The view looking down Rodeo Drive


One of many luxury stores on Rodeo Drive


The Hotel used in "Pretty Woman"


I swear that when I walked by Marilyn I thought she was real and I just had to have my picture taken with her. What they can do with wax is amazing!

Marilyn Monroe's star


The Kodak Theatre

The Acdemy Awards (Oscars) will be held here on March 7th. They were already setting up the road with bleachers and the fences to keep back.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

This is where there are almost 200 handprints and footprints of movie stars in concrete going all the way back to 1927.

Gina placing her hands on Judy Garland's hand imprint

Capital Records


This is the building used in the films Ghostbusters and Superman


The house from "Father of the Bride"

Gina said the movie made the house look much larger.

The sign letting you know that you're in Beverly Hills


Greystone Mansion

The grounds around the mansion is now a public park. However the house is closed to the public. A lot of movies and TV shows have been filmed here. The house is used for special functions like fundraising dinners.

The Beverly Hillbilly's home


The last home of Lucille Ball


Here is the sign for Bel-Air

We learned that rich people live in Hollywood Hills. Very rich people live in Beverly Hills, Extremely rich people live in Bel-Air and only the richest live in Holmby Hills. Now to us there were big houses in each area. However, we both agreed we wouldn't trade our 396 square foot mobile home for anything that we saw. We like our large backyard (it's always changing)

This is a new house under construction. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what movie it will be in??


This is the house used in Dr. Suess.

There are no angles in this house, it's all curves.

What would Hollywood be without expensive cars.

How about this Bugatti Veyron? Base price is 1.7 million U.S. dollars and for that you can own a car that boosts a top speed of 253 mph at almost 1,000 horsepower.

I hope you all enjoyed our tour of Hollywood. We had a great time seeing all of the sights. We decided early that the only way we could see everything was by taking a tour. There was no way we could have seen everything on our own. We got a really great deal, two for one. That's my kind of price. There was only eleven of us on the van so it was a small group. We were the only US citizens on the tour. All of the other passengers were either from Canada, Germany or UK. Gina and I had a great time on the tour. After we finished the tour we continued our walk down Hollywood blvd taking pictures of stars on the sidewalk and taking in all of the sights around. We finally decided that it was time to say goodbye to Hollywood. It was an interesting day to say the least. Here is a direct link to the photo album with all the stars Walk of Fame

Hopefully this will be our last blog entry in California as we intend to head for Arizona Sunday morning. We're not sure where. But I can tell you that where ever it is Gina will be hunting for rocks. It's hard to believe we have been here in California for six weeks. We have enjoyed our time here with Thomas. However, it's time to move on.

Gina & I hope everyone has a pleasant and wonderful day, enjoying what our Father has so graciously blessed us with.

Thomas's Week in the Field

I wanted to add these pictures in my last entry. However, I thought thirty pictures was enough.

Thomas was in the field last week as we were out sightseeing. This was his first training exercise in the field. Here are some of the pictures he took while he was out there.

Thomas's home for a week


His home from a different angle


The Radio gear he operates

More importantly the two antennas. His job for the week was to sit on top of the mountain and ensure the radio equipment stayed operational for the ground troops down in the valley.

Thomas the Marine with a mouth full of sunflower seeds


His view looking west toward the Pacific ocean


The playground


Thomas taking a nap with his Iphone


Thomas looking down on the clouds as they roll in


Clouds now surround the mountain


Another view as the clouds roll in


Still looking down at the clouds


Thomas waking up to a beautiful sunrise

Thomas had a great view on top of the mountain all week and here is one of the better sunsets.

Since Gina and I have been here at Camp Pendleton we have gained a new appreciation for what the Marine Corps does for our great nation.

It's hard to believe that today is Thursday and we only have two days left here before we say goodbye to Thomas and head to Arizona. We have enjoyed our time here with Thomas and have met a lot of wonderful fulltimers. I hope everyone has enjoyed these pictures as much as we enjoyed our son sharing them with us. If only you all could have seen the excitment he had while he told us about his week in the field.

Gina & I hope everyone has a pleasant and wonderful day, enjoying what our Father has so graciously blessed us with

A Wonderful Week of Sightseeing

It's hard to believe another week has passed but as the saying goes when you're having fun time flies. We have had fun and the week flew by. Here are a few pictures of the past week.

Thomas with his mom on the beach.

We decided to stroll along the beach for Valentine's Day. While we were there Gina found this rock in the shape of a heart. This really made her day.

The weather here in southern California has been beautiful. We decided to drive the car down the Pacific Coast Highway which follows the beach with the top down enjoying the sun. Here we are entering Dana Point.

Here's a picture of Laguna Beach. Gina loves watching the water hitting the cliffs. I told her we need to go to the Oregon coast where there are big cliffs overlooking the ocean.

I never knew Gina had a pizza restaurant but here it is. We probably would have stopped if the traffic wasn't so backed up in every direction.

Ol Boudreaux from the bayous of Louisiana must have taken a trip to California in the past and needed to get around and all he could find were surfboards so he adapted. These Californian's must have seen him. A picture of a California pirogue.

Looking down at Dana Point Harbor


A beautiful picture of the entrance to Dana Point harbor


Gina on the Beach admiring the sun going down.


Another beautiful day in California and what better way to end it than a beautiful sunset.

This is the place I spent two days with my truck trying to get our electrical system working correctly. They treated us great and I would highly recommend them if you're in the area and need work done on Magnum inverters or any type of marine equipment.

A small water garden located by the harbor in Point Loma.


Looking across the bay at downtown San Diego.


While we were waiting on the inverter to get fixed Gina decided to do a little sewing for Thomas.

We decided to try some seafood while we were at Point Loma. This place came with high recommendation. However, the food was just okay nothing to rave about. Nothing compares to Louisiana Seafood.

One day decided to take a drive to the Naval Base in San Diego so I could get a base decal on the car for Thomas. Everyone told us it would be easier and it was. It took all of five minutes and I didn't have to go get a smog check which is required at Camp Pendleton. From there we decided we wanted to go inland a little since we have been spending all our time on or near the water. Our destination would be a small town northeast of San Diego called Julian.

There is snow in them there mountains. We must get closer!!!


We finally found it and Gina had to put her foot in it to prove that she found it.



The road to Julian was beautiful and quite curvy.


A few of the deer that we saw on our drive.

Lake Cuyamaca is a 110 acre lake located at an elevation of 4600 feet. The scenery is absolutely beautiful.

Another view of the valley below as we were driving

Main Street of Julian, California. This was our destination. Julian is an old mining town established in 1870. The town is known for there apple orchards and their apple pies.

During harvest time The Julian Pie Company will make approximately 10,000 pies a day which are shipped throughout California. We first bought one slice to try and then decided to buy a whole pie. The apple pie tasted delicious.

After we left Julian we decided to head back toward Camp Pendleton. About 10 miles away we found this trail so we decided to stop and take a little hike.

There is a small stream down there in the rocks. We could hear the water flowing but could not see it.

The view was great as we walked.

Here's Gina walking ahead of me. We didn't walk the whole trail since the sun was going down behind the mountains. We finally made it home around eight o'clock and enjoyed another slice of apple pie with ice cream.

Our friends, Gayle and Jim. They're another couple here at the campground which let our dogs out for us today since we didn't know how long we would be. They invited us over to their place for hamburgers the next night. They tasted wonderful and we had a great time visiting with them.

Gina loves walking along the beach so I just had to add one last picture of what she enjoys.

We have had so much fun this past week. I guess up until this week I haven't been able to really enjoy myself much since I have spent so much of my time getting our electrical system working properly. Finally by the end of the week I felt confident that everything was working correctly as I had designed it to work.


Thomas got home from the field Friday night and Gina cooked fried chicken strips and homemade mashed potatoes for him since he was wanting some home cooked food. We were going to leave Camp Pendleton on Sunday. However, there was still some more sightseeing that we want to do so we decided to stay one more week. We are planning on leaving here this Saturday and slowly make our way toward Arizona.


Gina & I hope everyone has a pleasant and wonderful day, enjoying what our Father has so graciously blessed us with.