Coffee's Final CA Update

This will be my last update from Los Angeles as I am headed next to Florida, AKA the Sunshine State. 

I knew I was in southern Cali when I saw those beautiful blue skies and palm trees. Love it here. 

Tracy and Molly work in Hollywood, the home of the entertainment industry (which includes film, television and music.) The earliest movie production companies set up shop in Los Angeles in the early 1900's because of the great weather and plentiful shooting locations. Hollywood has been home to movie makers ever since. In the pic below if you look in the very distance you can just barely make out the iconic HOLLYWOOD sign. Believe it or not that tiny sign is actually 45 feet tall in real life. Another interesting fact: the sign is privately owned and trademarked, which means if you want to use it in your TV show or movie you have to get a special permit and pay the sign's owner thousands of dollars to do so! Also, the local residents HATE when tourists stop in their street to take pictures. But we were cool--just jumped in and out of the car really quickly to get this shot and didn't bother anyone! I hope!

We went down to the Walk of Fame where over 2000 movie stars and other entertainment luminaries are celebrated with their names in brass on pink stars in the sidewalk. Even fictional characters sometimes get a star. Godzilla is the only monster to have one so far.

 

I also got to see several costumed characters from the movies! Here I am with Darth Vader!

I felt a great disturbance in the force...but it was only Darth squeezing me a little too tight!

This is Selena Gomez, well, a wax statue of her anyway. Tracy and Molly had no idea who she was but I made them take my picture with her because I am a huge fan!

so lifelike! 

Next I got to do something really cool. Tracy snuck me into the prop house at Universal Studios. All the movie studios have their own prop houses where they store lots of furniture and decorations to use in their moves. Since Tracy is a set decorator she goes there all the time. We found some statues of other famous Hollywood legends. Some of them I was familiar with, others were old time stars from yesteryear I had never heard of.

ET was getting into the holiday spirit. 

Help!! Get me out of here!!   
I know this Jaws shark is fake but I must say it was a bit unnerving to be near all those teeth, even as a joke!

This is another movie monster from back in the day. His name is King Kong. This was one of my favorites photos to pose for because I got to chat with the pretty doll King Kong is holding. She was very friendly and not afraid of the giant gorilla at all--she said he's just a big baby at heart.


Well I had a great time in LA. I hope to visit again some time, but like I said, for now it's FLORIDA OR BUST!!!

Bye Molly and Tracy! See you next time!