Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles

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Destination: Los Angeles, CA

Length of Stay: 2 Nights (August 2018)

Lodging: Dockweiler Beach RV Park ($65/night)

This was our second time making it to L.A. In 2017 we went on a two week road trip across the U.S. and passed through on our way to San Diego, however this year we actually stayed for a couple nights.

Making our way from down from Emma Wood State Beach in Ventura we ended up at Dockweiler RV Park, which is run by LA county's department of parks and beaches where they offer full hookups with the the beach only footsteps away.

Fun fact: this is the only beach in LA where you can have bonfires (in the firepits) making it a cool spot to have a little fun at night. During our stay in LA we made it to three main attractions: The Griffith Observatory, Venice Beach, and Paramount Pictures.

Paramount Pictures

Run Forrest, Run!

In the morning, we set out early for a tour of Paramount Studios with a family friend who’s been employed there for over 30 years. At the age of 17, Karen, moved to Los Angeles in hopes of working for Paramount. Now, nearly four decades later, she still lives in LA and still works at Paramount!

It was so cool to see the campus from a golf cart and see some of the famous movie sets in person. We spoke with the kind woman who worked in the archives department for quite some time. Her current project was to locate the original pieces from the historical Paramount film The Ten Commandments.

We also got to see a handful of Tom Hank’s original costumes like his Nikes that he ran cross country with to Mexican Hat, UT (where we later visited) in the film Forrest Gump. We also saw Hanks' uniform from Saving Private Ryan and Johnny Knoxville's outfit from Bad Grandpa. If you’re interested in taking a tour of Paramount Pictures, tickets can be pre-purchased online here. If you are into movies or interested in film, it’s a worthwhile two and a half hour experience.

Griffith Observatory

From Paramount, we fought through LA traffic to get to the Griffith Observatory. We found street parking for around $8/hour and walked about a mile to get there. Entry is free to the observatory and you can see all of LA from the top (despite the smog). It was really cool and educational to see all the exhibits they have to offer about the planets, stars and cosmos.

We had time to burn and luckily, there were still seats available for the Samuel Oschin Planetarium showing of “Centered In The Universe.” Tickets were only $7/person (as of August 2018). The showing was a little over a half an hour very informative and educational. Our guide was enthusiastic which made the whole experience super special. My friend Diana, also a blogger, suggested we check out Skyspace LA, which has a slide and multiple levels similar to the observatory. If we had more time we definitely would have checked it out.

Venice Beach

Venice Beach (as seen in Tony Hawk Pro Skater) is an interesting place with a large homeless population. Molly had a 2 liter (empty) bottle of soda thrown at her for some reason. The area also has a lot of really creative graffiti art (seen below), skate parks, and street performers. We ended up not spending too much time in the area but the highlight was probably finding a couple Bird scooters to ride around on the boardwalk that stretches all the way from Dockweiler RV Park to Santa Monica.