Hey everyone! We took a quick 5 day trip to Los Angeles between Christmas and New Year’s this year to fit a little stateside travel into the plans.

Day 1

We booked ourselves on a 6:25am flight out of New Orleans, luckily direct to LAX, so only about a 3.5 hour flight. It was the first time Kegan got to use his Clear Plus membership and his TSA Pre-check, so that made 5:30am security a bit more tolerable.

We landed on time and headed out to grab an Uber, only to learn that you can’t grab an Uber at LAX, you have to ride a shuttle out to a rideshare lot. Which, actually, first annoyed me…but then after seeing it, I get it… it was much smoother and easy to find the Uber when it arrived because everything was labeled with a letter and number.

Our Uber dropped us at our hotel first to leave our bags, but unexpectedly, they had our room available at 10am. I booked Burton House, Beverly Hills- which sounds fancier than it is- its just a Residence Inn they rebranded. ha

Our first destination was supposed to be brunch at Bottega Louie in West Hollywood…which I had read was amazing, but they just brought us a lunch menu, no brunch today….but that’s ok. Food was still stellar. They are known for their pastries and macaroons. We didn’t sample any of those.

These were Portabello mushrooom “fries” and they were fantastic
Norah didn’t want the pizza we were getting, so I told her to just order her own entire pizza. ha
This is what I was here for… the Truffle, fontina, creme fraiche pizza with a runny egg yolk. This pizza was heavenly.

With full bellies, we headed across town to the La Brea Tar Pits to begin our tourist track for the day.

Overall, the geologist on the trip voted this a “skip”… and he’s right… there’s nothing really to see. You are seeing some sectioned and fenced off pits that may have a little 2-3 foot section of wet black tar visible. It is all preserved, which is great… but there’s not much to actually SEE. The Page museum on site was a nice 30 minute walk through with a few skeletons… and the atrium was pretty, but I think I’d save my money.

They had an Observation Pit that would have been cool to actually see the tar and maybe see how sticky it was….but it was closed. No tours were given that day either. Kegan was only able to get this photo sticking his phone up over a gate and hoping he didn’t drop it! ha
They have found the skulls of over 400 dire wolves in the pits.
An extinct short-faced bear
A sloth with fur getting eaten by a big cat
I think this is the mammoth they found in 2009 when they excavated more of the LA Museum of Art underground parking garage.
My bestie- the ground sloth. Not as big as others we’ve found- but I love it when I find them 🙂

We finished at Le Brea way quicker than I anticipated, so we decided to add on the LA Museum of Art which sits right beside La Brea in the same park and on our way to our next 3:30pm tickets we had to wait for.

It was a modern art museum… and I’m just not an appreciator of a lot of modern art… but they did have an exhibit highlighting the cosmos through various cultures in art. That was pretty neat.

There were lots of displays of old hand-drawn books on display about discoveries in space and science
This was a moving 3 layer hand-drawn and colored star chart in a book from the 1600s
Our first glimpse of the Hollywood sign from the 3rd floor of the Museum of Art
A statue of a chicken by Picasso. They had an entire room of Picasso works, including a couple that weren’t cubist. That was interesting.
A portrait of Frida Kahlo by Diego Rivera
Modern art I found interesting- a headless man trying to drink from a fountain
This was probably my favorite of the modern art… a mixed media work by Sanford Biggers called “Witness” from 2016. Various materials used to create African folk statues, creating shadows of a more modern strong Black culture. I couldn’t find much from the artist discussing the meaning other than it shows the ties to history and culture.

After meandering through all of the galleries, it was time for our pre-booked tickets at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

This museum just opened in late 2021, so still seemed very new and fresh.

Norah was thrilled there was a VR experience

One of the coolest exhibits was a zoetrope of the Toy Story characters to show the art of animation.

They had a big room/display of old cameras and equipment used to film in color. I liked this one because it was very similar to the color wheel we have for our 1950’s aluminum Christmas tree where the colors rotate in front of the light and create different color effects.
The original costume from Tron
Storyboard design for the racers in Tron
Storyboard design for the Terminator before filming
A concept design idea for the movie Blade Runner
The very first character sheet for Mickey Mouse. I love how just by looking at these still images on a sheet of paper, you can tell how the animation is suppose to move and act,
Morpheus’s costume from The Matrix
Gizmo from The Gremlins. Fun fact- by the time we got to this museum, my feet had a couple blisters because I wore new shoes like an amateur…and very thin socks. Kegan advised I get a pair of real socks… so I went to the gift shop of the movie museum here and bought a pair of Gremlins socks. ha
The video phone booth from Blade Runner

Overall, a very cool museum. There was a permanent exhibit about the roots of the movie studios and the Jewish founders. I didn’t realize that ALL the movie studios were founded by Jewish founders. Literally, every single one. That was interesting.

After the museum, we decided to just visit a couple other spots in the area before heading out. We got dropped off in our Uber at the parking lot of Du-Par’s, a well-known diner in the area. Famous to us because of the Amazon show Bosch, where the *sort of spoiler alert* – one of the main characters dies in the parking lot.

Attached to Du-Par’s is The Grove, which is a big vendor stall sort of food establishment. We were there for the Kaylin and Kaylin Pickles Kegan had seen on Instagram.

They had 12 types of pickles and offered pickle flights. We tried all 12.
In the end, we liked the Kosher Dill and the Honey Mustard slices the best. Kegan got 2 jars to eat this week before our flight back home.
We grabbed coffee at the “best coffee in LA”. Newsflash, it was not the best coffee in LA. lol

After walking around for a bit trying to find good food we wanted, we just decided to Uber Eats something from the hotel or eat nearby. Once we got back to our hotel, we decided to try Factor’s Famous Deli, a kosher deli across the street from our hotel.

Norah ordered cheesesticks…and man, there were a lot of them. ha she ended up eating them the next night for a late dinner snack too.
Matzah ball soup… a staple. Their’s was good… but I’ll actually venture to say that mine is better!
Norah’s chili dog she ordered… apparently the girl is growing. She’s thinner than she’s been in years, back in jeans she outgrew almost two years ago…and eating full meals this week, which is very unlike her. Must be a growth spurt. ha
Kegan got the Pastrami on Rye. I got the beef tongue half sandwich on rye with a side of chopper liver but I guess I forgot to photo mine. Chopped liver wasn’t my style..I’m still chasing Toojay’s liver schmear from south Florida….man, nothing like it.

We got Black and White Cookies to go since we were so full… and headed back to the hotel room for 30 minutes or so until our escape room time.

We had booked at Hatch Games for The Lab Rat which I had read was one of the best rooms in LA.

We (obviously) escaped! 🙂 It was a very cute room and concept. The humans were the lab rats and the rats were the scientists and you had to figure out how to escape your cage in 60 minutes. Our game master was super impressed with Norah, of course… and so impressed, he recommended she check out the behind the scenes set up of the room, so she could see the wiring and the sensors and the Arduino board and breadboard that was controlling the whole thing (she just got an Arduino board for Christmas…and I was hoping she would enjoy learning to program C++ on it via this 30 Days Lost in Space game where you have to get your stranded space ship back online over the course of 30 days via coding lessons to help you do it… so this backstage glimpse couldn’t have been more timely! Yay game guy for helping a mom get her kid interested in programming!)

After that, he even took us up an old elevator to a new room they are working on with a giant submarine they are theming for a room.

Funny little turn of events. I found this place because I was looking for Escape My Room LA- which is the only other location of the Escape My Room in New Orleans where we did all 4 rooms, they were the best rooms ever, we made friends with the game master there who even recommended we look into Haynes Academy for Norah and who told us about sound color synesthesia – which Norah definitely has! So… because we had such ties to Escape My Room, I wanted to find it out here but couldn’t. It looked like maybe they were affiliated with the Hatch Games in some way… But when he took us up to the top floor to the new super secret game under construction, I saw a giant Escape My Room logo painted on the wall. Turns out, during the pandemic they went under it sounds like and sold to the guys who created Hatch Games. The submarine is from New Orleans! and was acquired from the Audubon aquarium at some point by the Escape My Room guys, but never finished… but now its going to finally see the light of day next year. All in all, we felt very “in” there and it was a cool experience. He said Lady Gaga was just there last week. I bet she didn’t get to go see the secret submarine room! ha

Day 2

We started Day 2 with breakfast and a coffee from the chain Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf connected to our hotel…and then grabbed an Uber up to Warner Brothers Studios for a studio tour.

The tour was fairly neat. We go to see the backlot and the sound stages where tons of famous movies and shows have been filmed since the 1930s.

After a film and a golf cart ride around the backlot, we were allowed to self-explore a museum type area and the Stars Hollow town set from Gilmore Girls.

None of us were fans of Gilmore Girls or had ever really watched much…so this experience of walking the town didn’t really do much for us. Friends was the other big show with tons of photo ops, like the orange couch in Central Park with the fountain…or the Central Perk couch…we don’t really like Friends either… so we weren’t as absorbed into the opportunities as some other folks.
They let Norah turn off the Bat Signal and Kegan got to be the good guy to turn it back on to call Batman.
Original Christopher Reeves Superman costume
Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman costume
They had a Harry Potter section that Norah was pretty into
The sorting hat experience sorted her into House Gryffindor- which she wasn’t thrilled about because she’s definitely a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. A HuffleClaw or RavenPuff, if you will. 🙂

After Warner Brothers, we hitched an Uber ride out to Glendale to eat at Porto’s bakery- a cuban bakery and lunch spot.

We were unfortunately a bit underwhelmed. It was sooo busy… and the pastries or coffee wasn’t anything like what we would get in south Florida… but overall, it was a quick lunch to hold us over and was fine.

Guava and cheese pastry and a churro croissant. We also tried the Ham Croquette, the Potato Ball and the Cafe Con Leche. The coffee was the most disappointing. Kegan says its because it needs to be made with hate and a little bit of red lipstick. These folks just weren’t angry enough like his cuban girls at the cafe he used to go pick up from in Boca. haha

Next stop was the Griffith Observatory. Man, were there a lot of people who had the same idea on the Friday after Christmas! ha The traffic up the road to the observatory was so backed up, I felt bad for the poor Uber driver and we got out and walked the last mile up the hill to the entrance so he could turn around and go back down.

The viewpoint here I would have missed from the car, so that’s a positive. Also, I was not chilly anymore after that hike up…so another positive!
From the top, you have a great view of the Hollywood sign. I had to stand too close to Norah to get a good photo showing the sign closer and bigger behind her due to all of the people… but you get the idea.
The building is gorgeous… the views are spectacular.

They have expanded the observatory underground from just a telescope, exhibits and planetarium to add the Leonard Nimoy Event Theater, the Cafe At The End of the Universe (a play on words and homage to Douglas Adam’s Restaurant At the End of the Universe book-the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books being my favorites)- and tons of other science exhibits. There were just a few hundred too many people everywhere to be able to do anything. Kegan was frustrated, Norah was visibly annoyed with all the kids jumping in front of her and messing with the exhibits she was using… so we quickly decided that was enough and made our way for the exit.

Next stop was the cross streets of Hollywood and Vine to explore downtown Hollywood and see the famous Walk of Fame.

I made sure we stopped where we could see the Capitol Records building for Norah. One of her fun facts is that the Capitol Records building sends out a morse code signal from its tower. She sat and decoded it to ensure that her facts were accurate 🙂
Hollywood has a scramble light like Tokyo and it was fun to see everyone rush everywhere in all directions later in the evening when it was swarming with people.
We had time to kill until our dinner reservations, so we headed to Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

Opened in 1927, its been a theatre house and movie theater ever since. Changing names to Mann’s Chinese Theater in the 1970s and now the TLC Chinese Theater.

It was the first theater to have air conditioning…and many movies have premiered at this theater over the years including Star Wars in 1977. The Academy Awards were hosted here in the 1940s, but now in the Dolby Theater next door.

We were able to find tons of hand and foot prints in the front courtyard.

I was on the lookout for Mel Brook’s handprints because I knew his was funny. He wore a prosthetic 6th finger on his left hand when he did his prints, forever “cementing” him as a funny man.
Norah said “I know the name Michael Keaton”…. uhhh yeah, its Beetlejuice! I love Michael Keaton as an actor. We watched The Birdman recently and that was such a cool weird artsy film…. he’s great in the show Dopesick, too.
Kegan decided to give Billy Crystal’s star a little Mike Wizowski treatment. “Can you believe it… I’m on the Walk of Fame!!! ” (while being completely obscured)
Donal Duck’s prints made me giggle.

I had made 5:30pm reservations at Musso & Frank’s on Hollywood Blvd. It’s an Italian restaurant that’s been serving Hollywood elite for 105 years!

We were sat in one of the half round leather booths in the “new room” which was added on in the 1930s and the original exclusive “back room” bar and tables for the elites was moved to this area. This restaurant held Hollywood’s first pay phone where I’m sure many movie deals were made.

The history from their website is better than I could write it up:

“From the beginning, Musso’s has been a favorite among Hollywood’s A-list. Charlie Chaplin was an early regular. Often seen lunching with Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, Chaplin — legend has it — would challenge Douglas to a horse race down Hollywood Boulevard, and the winner had to pick up the tab at Musso’s. Charlie would win and gloat over a plate of Roast Lamb Kidneys, his favorite Musso’s meal.

In the ‘20s and ‘30s, it wasn’t uncommon to see Greta Garbo and Gary Cooper having breakfast together — flannel cakes and fresh coffee, of course. Or to bump into Humphrey Bogart having drinks at the bar with Dashielle Hammett or Lauren Bacall.

In the ‘50s, Hollywood legends like Marilyn Monroe (flanked by Joe DiMaggio), Elizabeth Taylor and Steve McQueen could be found enjoying drinks and appetizers in Musso’s famous Back Room. Jimmy Stewart, Rita Hayworth, Groucho Marx and John Barrymore also had starring roles at Musso’s.“

Most of their original classics are still being served. We started with the meatballs with polenta
I couldnt resist the steak tartare with quail egg. It was amazing.
I went with the classic Prime Rib- it was fantastic…..but 18oz was wayyy too much meat. ha I had to leave half of it.
Kegan tried the Lyonnaise potatoes. Basically skillet fried with onions… tasted like midwest skillet potatoes to me… but he loved them.
Kegan’s lamb chops
and the very authentic fried shrimp and fries for my kid who can’t ever get enough shrimp and fries, even living in New Orleans. lol
Stumbled on Leonard Nimoy’s star as we left Musso and Franks.

Norah really wanted to go to Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum… so since we had almost 2 hours to kill before our escape room reservation, we gave in and humored her.

To round out the evening, we booked an escape room at The Escape Hotel right on Hollywood Blvd.

It was a very cool themed joint. They had sideshow acts performing on the stage, tables and a bar…. and then 8 escape rooms all with circus or horror themes.

They gave us Escape passports to track for all of their rooms. They stamp you once in green when you enter, and in red if you escape.

We earned our red stamp and escaped with time left! It was a neat themed room, but overall an easy one since we’re at like 70-80 rooms now ha We really need to add up all of the rooms we’ve done and see.

Day 3

We started this Saturday morning with an Uber downtown to the Grand Central Market, a famous market that’s been open since the 1920s.

We found a guava and cheese croissant and coffee – neither were worth finishing.
So, we went to the only other venue open other than Eggslut (a new chain that had a huge line) – a Mexican taco stand serving chilaquilles, pancakes and breakfast burritos.
After breakfast we walked next door to the Bradbury building to see if we could get a peek inside to the famous atrium where scenes from BladeRunner were filmed.
The building didn’t open for another 45 minutes, but we could see most of the atrium through the door!
Across the street was the Million Dollar Theatre, one of the first movie theaters in the US. Opened in 1917. Built by Sid Grauman, just like the Chinese theater, this one was over 10 years earlier, before the big move from downtown to Hollywood.

After checking out that area, it was time for the trek up the big hill over towards the Central Library where we were scheduled for a monthly tour by the LA Conservancy on Art Deco Architecture.

But.. because of this amazing funicular railway called the Angel’s Flight, it was a quick and easy trip to the top of the hill!

Angel’s Flight was a railway open since 1901 for transporting people up and down Bunker Hill. With a 33 degree incline, its a steep slope.

The original Angel’s Flight was demolished in the 1960s when this whole downtown block was demolished to revamp it into mixed use commercial space. But, they stored the original cars, planning to reinstall it within 2 years. It took 27 years to actually get it accomplished!

It reopened in 1996 and other than a couple accidents that closed it down (biggest from 2001-2010) it remains open for travel and costs $1 each way, or .50 with TAP, LA’s public transport app. I had TAP for mine, but it wouldn’t let me pay for Kegan and Norah with my own TAP… so Kegan had to use a credit card for the $2 because they also only took exact change and the lowest he had was a $10.

This was another famous Michael Connelly novel/Bosch episode where they investigate the murder of a lawyer on the Angel’s Flight railway.

We headed to Maguire Gardens at the Central Library to meet our tour guide for our Art Deco tour.

Our guide was very nice friendly older lady, but man…she was a talker. ha I had to zone out and read on my phone hiding behind Norahs back a few times to keep from making annoying faces. ha but overall, great info- and great access into a couple private businesses we couldn’t otherwise see downtown.

We started out at the Con Edison building
Next the Central Library
After the tour, we walked to another street nearby and Norah spotted a robot delivery service.
The side of it said it was being driven remotely by a real human. How cool!
I wanted to stop by St Vincent Court that was nearby, it is a European street tucked into downtown LA. Since the 1950s when a big department store started letting out space to restaurants and cafes, now it is a deli, Italian, French coffee, middle eastern restaurants… it was a cute little street.

The next item up for us was lunch… and it was a couple miles away and across some freeway areas, so we thought it might be best to Uber…but I had seen these robot cars driving around earlier called Waymo’s. I was determined to ride in one during this trip. ha Kegan was not on board… but like most things, he loves me and wants me happy, so he was willing to die like a man. haha

I downloaded the app and signed up during one of those droning tour guide sessions I mentioned above while hiding behind Norah….so I called up Waymo and it was there in 3 minutes! It pulled up to the curb, I unlocked it with the app and we were in! Once you buckle up, you click Start Ride on the screen and you are off!

It was so weird to be riding in a car with no one in the driver seat…but honestly, after this ride, we took about 7 more in the trip and were disappointed when the destination was out of Waymo’s designated travel area and we had to go back to Uber. No weird driver, no crazy air freshener smells or terrible jerky driving (my goodness the bar is low for Uber drivers anymore)… the car was clean, the temperature was great, the music is set from your phone based on what you want to hear. It was honestly a great experience and the robot driver was fantastic. Kegan became a bigger fan than me! and having Norah alone in the front passenger seat with no driver had tons of people looking and doing double-takes, laughing, asking her how she liked it… it was great. 10/10 recommend if you go to LA.

Lunch was an all you can eat sushi restaurant that had fantastic reviews online called Tokyo Haus.

After eating the entire ocean, we needed to call up our robot friend Waymo once more to visit Olvera Street, the birthplace of Los Angeles back in the 1800s when it was just El Pueblo de Los Angeles.

They were having some sort of festival in the square.

After exploring downtown, we decided to make one more stop our way back towards our hotel at the Velaslavasay Panomara – which is something we saw a couple places in Europe- these 360 degree paintings- mostly in Poland and the Czech Republic… so Waymo dropped us off, only for us to discover it is open by appointment only… and there was a homeless guy sleeping behind that bush in the entry. So… back into a new Waymo. lol

Last minute, I found an escape room to book at Maze escapes which was Sherlock Holmes themed… we tied for the record in the room at 22 minutes…..so it was sort of disappointing to be in and out so fast lol

We were still so full from sushi lunch that we didn’t eat dinner, just grabbed a couple small snacks at the convenience store next to the hotel and called it an early night.

Day 4

Today was museum day. We started out with breakfast at our hotel which ended up being a bad choice- it took an hour to get Salmon toast and a coffee. ha Kegan was banned from making any more decisions on this vacation after this third choice that was an annoying one ha (Griffith Observatory and La Brea Tar Pits are the others) After breakfast we Waymo’d to the Natural History Museum

We were almost the only people upstairs when we first started. Much more manageable crowds than we have been experiencing.
The largest known ammonoid fossil in the world.
Norah still enjoys the little kid science museum exhibits. So I always let her play around. You never know when it will be the last time.
A very extensive gem and mineral collection.

After the Natural History Museum, we had to get an Uber to The Getty- a large private art museum thats way out in the Hollywood Hills

A Da Vinci painting that I was surprised to see here.
The line out the door queueing up to view Van Gogh’s Irises. We accidentally skipped the line by coming through the building from upstairs first and then down… whoops lol It is a very cool blue/purple bright pigment painting. I see why it was so remarkable.
Im sure this view from the top overlooking the city is amazing when its not 50 degrees and foggy 🙂

Overall, a few cool paintings…but I feel like it was more of an attraction for the amazing buildings and gardens and views… At the risk of sounding super snobby, it just didn’t have the impact after going to European art museums. It was free entry though…. and technically you were supposed to make a reservation ahead of time…and we didn’t so we were lucky to even get in. The security guy just took pity on us and let us pass through! So, for that…I am thankful and happy with the experience.

We grabbed an Uber back down off the mountain into town to a taco truck I had been following on Instagram for months….only to learn they are only there on SATURDAYS and not SUNDAYS…. dang it. So I pivoted and found another high rated Mexican restaurant in the area called Loqui.

After that, we decided to walk around and explore Culver City. We walked past Sony Pictures Entertainment (I think where they film Jeopardy!)

We walked a mile or so to the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

It was a weird art installation that was set up to look like a real museum. It was all weird useless stuff lol I’m not artsy enough… We were all confused ha. I think maybe pass. Unless you just like weird stuff lol

We hit up Milla Chocolates across the street but it a was right before they closed and the girl was less than helpful even explaining how they bundle their chocolates… so I just got a drinking black sesame chocolate drink and called it a day. $6 per chocolate for tiny little chocolates anyway lol

Next we walked by an Erewhon grocery store- the celebrity grocers…. I had to go be a grocery store tourist and see what sort of stuff I could find.

I left with a $14 bottle of super green juice because I LOVE green pressed juice and didn’t have any the whole trip… and it was some of the worst green juice! haha It was just like pressed swiss chard with cayenne pepper.

Lastly, we had to let Norah experience the California exclusive of In-N-Out burger.

Kegan and I lived in California for a couple years… so we didn’t feel the need to eat a Hamburger and fries, but Norah was all about it.

To round out the evening, we booked one last escape room at Escape Room 66 in a room called The Mush Room.

It was a fantasy room almost like Candyland where we had to find our way out. There were like 75 locks in the room. It was comical. Not our fave. Very homegrown…but they did have a tank of a cat named Beans that we got to pet, so a win overall.

Day 5

Day 5 was alllll Universal Studios Hollywood!

We went all out and booked the VIP experience with the private lounge, guided private tour guide, lunch and and VIP lanyard that granted us unlimited Express Lane rides for the entire day.

The breakfast was a small buffet with pastries and sandwiches and coffee while we waited and met our guide for the day.
Our studio tour was on a trolley of about 20 people and we got to walk around the sets and take photos instead of just the normal tram studio tour
We got to walk through the currently filming show St Denis on Stage 26 which looked SUPER realistic to a real ER that it was spooky.
The fake facade for the exterior.
Our guide Angela and the Back to the Future courthouse set, which is also the courthouse from To Kill A Mockingbird with Gregory Peck.
Monster murals by a famous LA street artist done with spraypaint.
Walking down New York Street where all the major superheroes have fought.
The plane crash from War of the Worlds scenes
Fast and the Furious the Ride was broken when we went through, so no idea if the car chase was cool or not lol
Harry Potter World was very cool
The Waterworld show was a bit kitchy but there a surprise plane that flew it on fire at the end and made it pretty cool.
Our first glimpse of Super Mario World from the escalators
Someone was very happy with their Toad hat lol
We shared a meal back at Harry Potter World of fish and chips and sticky toffee pudding and I had warm butterbeer.
To close out the night we ended in the kiddy land and rode Secret Life of Pets and Minion Madness and Kung Fu Panda Express.

Overall, I felt like the value was there for the VIP passes since the normal tickets were higher for Christmas and once you added Express Passes and paid for food and water in the parks… it was maybe $100 more per person… and everything felt very relaxed and handled… and we rode every ride in the park at least once. For one day, worth it.

Tuesday we headed to the airport first thing to head back home. It was a fun trip to the west coast, but I won’t be searching Zillow for any houses anytime soon. 🙂

Next trip is to Italy at the beginning of March, see you then!