LA Tour

No big black guys so had to settle for a big green one!

Friday June 3^rd

Today we did the big Hollywood / LA bus tour with a friendly driver- understood most of what he said but some was lost with the Hispanic accent. It was a sort of get on the bus, get off the

bus – you have 20 minutes here and 30 minutes here, then back on the bus sort of day.

Well for mine it was a bit over rated, but at least we’ve seen the big ‘H’ sign, the Chinese Theatre, the hand prints of famous stars, Sunset Boulevard, Rodeo Drive, etc.

 Downtown LA and the ‘Farmers Market’ were more interesting for me.  Tried the ‘Gumbo Ya Ya with cornbread and sweet potato crisps’. Good stuff.

We had planned that afterwards we would go to the Greyhound bus depot and pick up a bus to Pomona where we knew there was a caravan park that had tent sites (seems not a lot do). In any event we were too late to catch the Greyhound bus and ended up catching a city bus out to Pomona. Pomona is a suburb in the greater LA area towards the mountains and about 25 miles from LA.

This was late afternoon after another sunny day of about 28 degrees. From Pomona depot we had to find our way to the camping ground and weren’t quite sure how we’d get there. The bus driver filled us with confidence when he offered his opinion that Pomona was really the safest of places to be and that there might be security at the depot. And, actually he’d never heard of a camping ground out there!

So now we’re on the bus, its late afternoon and we’re mobile to a place that I now have the distinct impression is some kind of getto. So I’m frenziedly practicing my 30 year old cool street talking phrases, thinking if we do this right we’ll slip right under the radar. And for those who appreciate the training at work I’m thinking I just may have to deploy the old  ‘tactical communications’ whilst I’m in full ‘tactical disengagement’ mode (ie. running away).

When we arrived at the depot it seemed okay but by that time I was seeing muggers under the rubbish bins (even though it didn’t look that dangerous). So we booked a cab at the office, it arrived promptly and a friendly cabby gave us a lift the 2 miles to the camping ground – all good and no problems.

The only hiccup was the lady at reception was hard pressed dealing with campers who didn’t have a vehicle. She was so perplexed by this she had to ring her boss and tell him she had just let a site to some tourists who arrived by taxi.

Mike



Mike on Muscle Beach trying to act like a local