Hollywood & Los Angeles, CA - July 2001

When I heard my friend Tiffany Michelle was interested in coming out to Arizona, I was ecstatic.  We hung out in Las Vegas a while back for a weekend, and had a blast.  She had talked about wanting to see The Lion King up in New York City on Broadway, so I casually mentioned that The Lion King is also showing in Los Angeles, and she was hooked.  After a day shuttling her around Tucson to see the sights, and a day up on Mount Lemmon (just north of Tucson, 9100 ft., nice and cool!) we hopped in the car at 3:30AM and headed towards Los Angeles with my roommate Megan along for the ride.   Picture Thelma & Louise meets Witches of Eastwick :). 

  We stopped along the way at this nifty rest spot near Banning, California.  You can see two of the dinosaurs there from a mile away, and you can actually walk up inside the brontosaurus - there's a gift shop in there. Tiffany and I stopped to take a few photos with the dinos while the desert wind blew about 50 mph.

   Hollywood!  Tiff and I dropped off Megan in San Bernardino with her friend Rhiannon, and Tiff and I were off to Hollywood.  Before we knew it, we were driving along Hollywood Blvd., taking in some interesting scenery.  We saw a little of the Walk of Fame - I found Jerry Lewis' star, Edward G Robinson's star, and best of all, Kermit the Frog's star!  We stayed overnight in Hollywood and had a chance to drive up the windy side streets that lead you nearest to the HOLLYWOOD sign.  A nice millionaire was kind enough to wander down his driveway and snap our pictures near the sign. 

Tiff and I got dressed to the nines, and headed over to the Pantages Theatre to catch Disney's latest Broadway musical, and it was really something!  The music is fantastic, and some of the characters were just plain amazing.  The actors who handled Zazu the bird and Timon the Meerkat were terrific.  We sat in the 26th row of the orchestra, and caught a great show.  We took these photos during Intermission, standing by the staircase leading to the balcony at Pantages.  I love theatre, ever since I saw Phantom of the Opera up in Phoenix a few years ago I've been hooked.  Visit www.Disney.com if you're interested in catching the show sometime.

    Nothing like following up a trip to a Broadway Musical with a visit to a big group of tar pits!
We stopped at La Brea to check out the tar...apparently over 100 tons of fossils have been removed from the tar pits over the past 150 years, including mastodons, mammoths, sabertooth tigers, wolves, American lions, horses, and one human woman.  We picked up Megan afterwards and headed back to Tucson. 

  I was sorry to see Tiffany leave.   Why most of my best friends seem to live hundreds (or thousands) of miles away, I'll never know.  Hoping to see her again soon.