Much Needed Getaway

Way cool set in California Adventure

Another, slightly better pic with the Hollywood sign

This is before take off on the ferry

I love this castle...it really is quite magical...that is what is so cool about Disneyland, you feel like a kid again

We waited in line for this Toy Story games ride for almost an hour thinking we were in line for the roller coaster ride. The whole time we were like "Why are there so many kids in this line? They're not tall enough! This ride is way too scary for them!" Joke's on us huh? It was a fun ride though and I would recommend it:)

Bran loved the Buffalo house, most of the houses did have a theme

Like the folks in Beverly Hills, everyone here builds on stilts on the hillside and literally right on top of their neighbors' houses, you wouldn't believe how packed it was!

More murals

This alley way doesn't look narrow, but it really is...a golf car is the only thing that could fit...all their alley ways were this tight...

Nice view of the harbor from the hillside

Back behind the wheel where he belongs...this was a way fun tour, but expensive...note: everything is expensive in California!

This is what everyone drives on Catalina...we only saw a few actually cars....why you ask? A) because the island is tiny B) gas is 8.00 a gallon...

You want culture???? This is real culture...

That guy is definitely making sure the sun doesn't scorch his delicate skin...love the hat:)

Getting fried at the beach, well at least Bran was, some guys were like "Dude, you're gonna fry! You've got white skin, you better be careful!"

A lot of buildings in Catalina had murals painted on them...

We took this badboy for a spin and found out how hard it is to pedal in sink...we also found out (thanks to Brannon) that you can pop wheelies on curbs and ride on hillsides on this thing, needless to say I was an unwilling participant, so I let him pedal by himself:)

Posin at the port

My hair was so ratty and gross by the end of the ferry ride, notice how Bran has his eye closed cause my hair was blowing in it...hahaha

This was our ride to Catalina, pretty smooth too

I thought this John Wayne look-alike was fake, but he's a real guy and that's what he does for hours on end, crazy huh? He was way good at it.

One of many colorful locals on the streets in Hollywood

The Walk of Fame

The hollywood pick-up truck

A lot of the homeless people work in teams to earn money...some would dress up in costumes and pose with people for pictures for tips...

This is me walking all over Tom Cruise:)

High fashion mannequins on Rodeo Drive

You wouldn't believe the people who walk on this street...I've never seen such fashion sense!

Recognize this house??? This was the Fresh Prince of Belaire house, cool huh?

This monstrosity is one of Leonardo Decapario's haciendas in Beverly Hills...it really was quite ugly. It had stains running down the sides of it and by they way, all these people who live in the hills build their houses on stilts and some houses fall down completely because the hills are constantly eroding....you think people would use a little common sense, but who needs that if you have money?

Nicholis Cage's front gates, could even see the dang house!

Any Grease fans???? This is John Travolta's pad.

The front gates of Belaire, where The Fresh Prince resided

Memorabilia outside of Micheal Jackson's gate

Micheal Jackson's front gates, still being guarded and swarms of people still surrounding it...weird

Look to the left and the teeny tiny letters say "Hollywood" (that is what the tour guide means when they say that you get to take your picture "next" to the Hollywood sign)

This pizza was huge! One slice was about the size of a small pizza

Cool place, but the neon sign flickered so much that is hurt our eyes and we had to eat with our backs to it, good thing we're not epileptic

Kodak theatre, no red carpet events today unfortunately...

This is the ticket booth to a famous theater...I can't remembe what it's called, but Jimmy Kimmel does his show here....

The famed Chinese theater, check out all the tourists, what a nightmare.....

The weird spaceship-like building is the Capitol Records building...it was hard to get a good pic

Just a sample of the local graffiti on the freeway

What a waste of space, but kind of cool too

Brannon and I have never been on vacation together...we didn't even go on a honeymoon because we were so busy with work and school. I'm sure that our story is the same for a lot of poor college students, so we decided to splurge a bit and go somewhere before summer's end. Brannon let me plan the vacay so we went to California. If it would have been up to him (and he reminded me of this several times on the trip) we would have gone camping in the mountains because he likes trucks and trailers and four wheelers and campfires and etc....I have to say that the horrid freeways and traffic in California were catalysts for his comments. We got lost two out of the three days we were there for about two hours at a time each time we did get lost and we got pulled over when we went on a wrong exit and swerved back on the freeway. Luckily we didn't get a ticket because the cop could tell that we were totally lost with the maps scattered all over our rental car. When we told him where we were trying to go, he laughed and told us we were way off (no duh!), but then he was nice enough to write down the right directions for us. We took a Tom Tom with us so we didn't get lost and she, Margaret (yeah we named the Tom Tom) contributed to our being lost, so we fired her for the rest of the trip. Other than the traffic and confusing freeways, we did have a really good time. We spent the first day in Hollywood where we toured movie star homes (we didn't actually go inside them, we just peeked at them through the bushes like the paperazzi). I did get some cool pics of Micheal Jackson's front gate though and of the famed Rodeo Drive. The next day we went to Catalina via ferry. The ride over was soooo cold and windy and this big lady came outside on deck where we were to throw up downwind from me, so I made a beeline out of there. Lucky for me and other passengers she decided to humor us and go into the bathroom instead. We spent the day walking around the cool little town of Avalon, sunbathing on the beach, we rented a two person bicycle and rode that for an hour, and then Brannon needed something with a motor, so we rented a golf cart and took a driving tour around the island, which was way cool. The ferry ride back was way better than the ride over and we got to see dolphins, seals, and a whale. We spent our last day at Disneyland and California Adventure. We are now bonfide Disneyland lovers. That one day made the traffic worth it. Our hotel was nice except for the first night. At like four in the morning our door opened up, blinding us both with orange light from outside, and there was a big guy standing there. He was like "expletive! They gave us the wrong room!" The shut the door and Bran and I were still half asleep, but Brannon managed to blame it on me when he said "Why didn't lock the door?" Hello!!! I was not the last person in the room! Oh well, I just told Bran it was a good thing that guy wasn't a murderer or something. The hotel gave us a gift certificate to their restaurant to make up for the incident, so I guess it wasn't too bad that someone walked into our room in the middle of the night. My mom and sisters came to our house and watched Taj for us so that we didn't have to drag him all over California...they were saints:) Anyway, here are some pics from our little adventure...