This is "My Hometown"

I know, I know ... it's been awhile since my last post. Life has been crazy (and that hasn't been all bad! ;)). Work has been crazy too which has really sapped my blogging time. But here, finally, are some pictures from the LA trip!

First stop .... Citiwalk! T2 and I headed there for some late night grub after our arrival into LAX.

The next morning we headed out to the House Of Blues on the Sunset Strip to catch the Gospel Brunch with a few girlfriends of mine.

There was some good eats there but this gospel band in particular won't be one of my favorites.

Next off, I drag T2 off to Mann's (Grumman's) Chinese Theater to show her the ultimate in touristy!

There we found many, many foot prints. Such as:

Mr Tom Hanks:

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward:

Roy Rogers and Trigger!

Shirley Temple:

Sly Stallone:

And last but certainly not least, the nicely big-footed (ahem) ... Johnny Depp!

Speaking of Johnny Depp, check out this actor available for picture taking right outside the theater. He wasn't bad. The Orlando character not so much .... but Capt Jack ... pretty good (though apparently not in this picture ... I know not why!).

We also saw the Kodak Theater ... home of the Oscars.

The Roosevelt Hotel:

And the Walk of Fame:

T2 also bought a map to the stars home (hehe ... that cracks me up) and so we became bonafide stalkers.

Bruce Springsteen's mailbox (the house appeared to be undergoing renovations):

This SAID it was George Clooney's place but we didn't agree (it just didn't feel right!). The view coming down from that place was pretty dang spectacular though...

And then in honor of my friend A who is Tom Hanks first cousin ... we stalked Tom Hanks (sorry Tom!).

The street was beautiful and normal ... the house hidden by gates ... but we believed this to be Tom's place when we spotted a security guard parked in a truck watching the house from two houses down. Of course, he spotted us as well and apparently two pictures was the limit because he pulled out and so we skedaddled (hello, 1-800-IMA-WUSS!!) :)

While trolling the Beverly Hills neighborhoods....

... we ran across an open house! So, we went in! HEH! Man, that real estate agent gave us the Stink Eye! But who cares, we got to tour a 6.5 million dollar home! Whoo hooo! Here's some pics. Oh, and for the record, those closets, yeah, his and hers. At first we just thought there was the one off the master and were oohing and aahing over that ... but no, his and her bathrooms and closets! Where do I sign up for THAT??

The master bedroom with veranda (LOVED me that veranda):

"His" closet and bathroom!

"Her" closet and bathroom!

And finally, the backyard!

We also hit Rodeo Drive! That's where we met our shoes. Sigh.

Here's Versace .......and also some chick with her horse/dog just out for a day of shopping!

And LOOK! We recognized this hotel at Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Blvd as the one used in the movie Pretty Woman!

We also tracked down the much acclaimed cupcake store called Sprinkles! Apparently we weren't the only ones looking for it! Check out this line! (OF COURSE we waited in the line .... hello, CUPCAKES!)

But the cupcakes were indeed yummy and I had to take a picture of the "Shot of Frosting" listing on the menu. Can you say "diabetic coma"!!!!

So after a day of hanging out in the nicest of areas, we're driving back to my mom's place in the rental car when suddenly I notice an engine light on and the car acting very sluggish. I look at where we are on the freeway and just inwardly scream "NOOOOOOOOOOO". Yeah, not a good area ... and we've got to exit the freeway.

T2, ever on the ball, takes note of the nearest gas station as we exit the elevated freeway and we limp over to it ... car doors locked! We let the car cool a bit and then MacGyver (errr, T2) pops the hood and puts more water in. I notice that it is just leaking right on out and so she futzes around a bit and sees that a hose has lost its connection. She puts it back on but we add more water and know it isn't going to hold because it is still leaking.

So we call Enterprise and complain that their brand new 2008 Ford Focus (with a whopping 397 miles total on it!!!!) is shot! They say they are sending help so we hunker down in the car and try to be invisible! Good thing I remembered that we had CUPCAKES! And before we could even polish off one each .... our rescuers arrived! They took a look at the hose situation and discovered that Ford had used a plastic band to connect the hose. You know, plastic ... the thing that expands and breaks easily when heated ... which is had. SHEEESH! Lame! Anyway, so they whipped out some handy-dandy zip ties to better complete the connection and we were off!!! As our tip to them, they are now Sprinkle cupcake eaters as well!! :)

The next day we headed out to the LA Sports Arena to stand in line for Bruce!!!!! Only to find out that numbered wristbands will be handed out between 2 and 5pm and so we had some time to tour around a bit more. T2 found a place called "South Park" nearby so we headed over there for some picture taking. Here's the park .... and a nicely graffitied tree! (yeah, doors locked in this area too!)

We then did a little shopping on the streets of downtown Los Angeles then met my friend L for some lunch at one of the restaurants outside her office building.

Then back to Bruce!! T2 did NOT know what she was in for with regard to Bruce-mania man. There was almost a thousand people there just with wristbands waiting to see which number would be called so we knew which lucky 500 people got to be in "the pit" (right in front of the stage). Apparently we used up all our luck not getting killed the night before when our car broke down so we weren't two of those 500 unfortunately! But we did well anyway and packed ourselves in probably three rows behind the pit folks. Here's a couple pics!



And true to form, my video taking while rocking out like a maniac doesn't make for the best video! But it's a crackup anyway. Here's a very short clip of Bruce performing "Born To Run". (warning: you may want to take Dramamine before watching this!!)



That's it! All in all a fabulous trip! Thanks to T2 for your mad MacGyver skills during the breakdown, for the general fun, and, most importantly, for your new concert purse with hidden compartment so we were able to sneak your camera into Bruce!!!!!!!!!! :)