41. Los Angeles: Best Places to Instagram

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When I last left you, we
had made our way down the Pacific Coast

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Highway to Los Angeles. Well we're
here now, we might as well drive

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around. On this episode, I'm
planning for my own trip to Los Angeles.

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Been there many times, but not
in about a decade, and I'll

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be out there very shortly. I'm
going out there with my teenage daughter.

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So this had a twofold purpose.
One. I got to prep for my

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own trip and remind myself of some
things that I like to do when I'm

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in a particular place, which is
the premise of the show too, and

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it's slotted really nicely into my West
Coast road trip thing. So when I'm

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out in LA I plan to do
another few episodes using the portable recorder like

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I did in Las Vegas, so
those becoming, you know, Midsummer.

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But this episode here is a combination
of my previous experiences and some new research

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that I have done. I'm starting
with an article that I found on Discover

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los Angeles dot com. It's called
the fifty most popular Los Angeles locations on

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Instagram, and I'm like, okay, I got a tea girl with me.

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She's on the Insta let's do it. Let's start up in Santa Monica.

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Santa Monica is a good time for
this upcoming trip. I wanted to

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stay in Santa Monica and I priced
out. I'm a bit of a hotel

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snob. I don't like staying in
the you know sheety motel sixty eight dollars,

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I don't like doing those. But
four hundred dollars a night Santa Monica,

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no thanks. I found a nice
place in downtown LA for it was

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still two twenty. I just couldn't
do four hundred dollars a night anyway.

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Santa Monica is where the city meets
the c great description. It's got a

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nice little beach town feel meets the
city meets boardwalk meets Ferris Wheel kind of

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cool. You'll find it at the
crossroads of the Pacific Coast Highway and California's

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Interstate Highway ten. So if you're
just doing the LA part, definitely make

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your way over to Santa Monica.
If you didn't do the PCH trip,

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head up the Pacific Coast Highway for
a little bit. Just drive it.

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You'll enjoy it and at some point
you'd be like, I should turn around

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now and at that point turn around, but definitely head up the pch and

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definitely spend some time in Santa Monica. I've had an afternoon or two sitting

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there on the beach. The Pacific
Ocean is cold. If you're from the

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East coast, the Pacific Ocean is
cold, be ready for that. You

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can definitely walk around downtown's Third Street
Promenade and Santa Monica Place. You'll find

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upscale boutiques along Montana Avenue. The
Santa Monica Pier built in nineteen o nine.

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You've seen this on TV. You
want to go, you gotta do

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it. It's home to an amusement
park. Yeah, there's rides out on

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the pier and the Santa Monica Aquarium
plus ice cream. I'm in. Pacific

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Park is a full service amusement park
located on the pier with rides such as

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the five story West Coaster, Ruler
Coaster, the nine story Pacific Plunge Tower

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ride, and the nine story Pacific
Wheel, the only over water ferris wheel

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in California. I'm a scaredy cat. No thanks, you guys do that.

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I'll be over here. Third Street
Promenade pedestrian only, open air shopping

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Destination two blocks from the beaches,
weekly farmers market, shopping, street performers,

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dining options, and of course people
watching. The South Bay Bicycle Trail

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twenty two miles long. Count me
in. Yes, love it. It's

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the world's longest oceanfront bike path.
It begins at Will Roger State Park,

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the northernmost part of Santa Monica,
then winds this way past Santa Monica State

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Beach, pass the pier, through
the Venice Boardwalk, and past the Venice

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Pier all the way through her Most
and Redondo Beach to end at Torrens County

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Beach. As someone who sometimes rents
a bike can go somewhere, I will

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remind you I said it was twenty
two miles. It's also twenty two miles

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back. Don't get carried away,
you have to come back. Remember that

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Santa Monica named one of the top
ten beach cities in the world by National

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Geographic About getting a picture with the
Root sixty six end of the trail sign

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Root sixty six was actually decommissioned in
nineteen eighty five, but they put up

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the commemorative sign at the ocean in
two thousand and nine. All right,

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so you get it, and if
you listen to the show. You know

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what I like outside beaches. I'm
in right. Okay, let's tour around

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because we've got the teenager and she
needs some instagrams. Hollywood have you heard

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of it. It's where they make
the movies. There's a big sign it

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says Hollywood. You're gonna want a
picture? I get it. Okay,

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we'll drive over there. You can
get a picture. Hollywood Sign, Hollywood

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Boulevard, Chinese Theater. Again,
this show is not for locals. If

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you're from LA and you're like Johnny
Mack, I'm gonna throw up in my

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mouth? Are you kidding me?
Dude? I get it. And as

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I say on every episode, when
you come to New York and you go

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to Statue of Liberty, I get
it. I don't do that, but

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I get it. No problem.
So we're taking a picture of the Hollywood

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Sign. Man, get it?
Get it? Yeah. Originally created nineteen

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twenty three as an advertisement for real
estate development called Hollywood Land, by the

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nineteen seventies, the sign was in
a crappy state. Fortunately, prominent donors

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such as Gene Autry, Hugh Hefner, Andy Williams, Warner Brothers Records,

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and of course, Alice Cooper,
Yeah, yeah, I helped to save

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and restore the sign. For a
close up, head to the main hiking

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trail that's accessible from the Griffith Observatory
parking lot. Might as well talk about

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Griffith Park, Covering more than four
thousand acres of natural terrain. It's the

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largest municipal park an urban wilderness area
in the US. Griffith Park in the

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eastern part of the Santa Monica Mountains. There you will find the Griffith Observatory

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and at the Griffith Observatory a main
hiking trail that you head up and you'll

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get a good picture of the Hollywood
Sign. All right back in the car,

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we got some instagramming to do.
Let's head over to the Walt Disney

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Concert Hall at the Music Center located
on Grand Avenue in downtown LA. This

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thing opened in two thousand and three. Instagram suggestions include the massive pipe organ

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inside the auditorium and the rooftop Gordon
the Chinese theater. Gotta do it.

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You've seen this, you know what
this is. You gotta let's do it

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again. I'm from New York.
People in knockoff Elmo and Spider Man costumes.

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Don't intimidate me. I'll hang out
in front of the Chinese Theater and

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I will take some photos. The
theater striking exterior, designed to resemble a

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giant Chinese pagoda, is perfect for
instagrams, such is the huge Chinese dragon

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on the facade facing Hollywood Boulevard.
More instagrams can be found on the famous

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four Court of the Stars, where
nearly two hundred celebrity handprints, footprints and

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autographs are immortalized in the concrete.
The Hollywood Bowl opened in nineteen twenty two.

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People have played there, included the
Beatles, Monty Python, and Dave

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Chappelle. Cross plug for me.
I host a daily podcast. It's called

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Daily Company News. We talk about
Dave Chappelle a lot. Well, he's

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played the Hollywood Bowl. Don't you
want an instagram there? Of course you

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do. How about the Capitol Records
Building. This is a thirteen story tower.

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This is that round building you've seen
in a lot of movies, the

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same movies where the White House and
the Statue of Liberty get blown up.

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The Capitol Records Building usually gets blown
up. In my mind, it's always

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being blown up by cylons. In
the original Battlestar Galactica. You've seen this.

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Let's talk about Venice. We should
do Venice. Maybe we did it

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earlier on our twenty two mile bike
ride which turned into a forty four mile

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bike ride because we didn't plan to
forgot we had to come back. Say

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we should drive over to Venice.
Along the boardwalk, you'll find street performers

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in local cromen selling their wears,
original paintings, souvenirs, jewelry, people

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working out pumping iron and plane view
skateboarder is doing skateboarding things, plus a

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beach. Venice is a mostly walkable
and certainly bikable neighborhood full of areas to

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explore. Food stalls will sell you
everything from shaved ice to cattle corn to

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funnel cakes. It'll make you feel
like you're walking through fair grounds. You

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can also find some good restaurants in
Venice. Should we do the Labret's Heart

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Pits. I've never done this?
Should we? Should We just be like,

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Oh, Drassic Park is coming out. I'm all excited dinosaurs and stuff.

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Yeah, I don't know. Explore
the world's only active urban ice age

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excavation site inside the Page Museum.
They showcase fossils, animals and plants that

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have been discovered there, such as
mammets, sabretooth cats, dire wolves,

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and more. Outside, check out
the Labret's heart pits where tar is still

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bubbling. Help the horrible earthquake that's
eventually gonna happen. Isn't there when I'm

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there? Should we go in some
hikes about the Griffith Park trails. We

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talked a little bit about that,
the vast cas Rocks. If you're a

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Star Trek fan, you know this. That's where the Gorn attack Captain Kirk.

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You gotta get a picture of that
if you're a trek nerd like me.

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Malibu Creek State Park home to the
outdoor set of the classic TV series

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Mash. I'm a big fan of
that. Stay on Crags Road, follow

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the signs to the Mash set,
and of course we do theme parks.

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Universal. I had a great time
when I was there. It's fun to

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do the movie stuff for me on
this trip. I don't know. Maybe

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it's because of my East Coast bias. If I went to Florida, Universal,

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I'll be like, Oh, Harry
Potter rides. But in Los Angeles

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Universal, I kind of want to
do more like movie stuff. And then

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there's Disneyland that's in Anaheim. Relatively
new at Disneyland, Star Wars, Rise

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of the Resistance, and the Millennium
Falcon Smugglers Run. I don't know if

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I'll have enough time on my upcoming
trip to make it to either Disneyland or

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Universal Studios, but you can't go
wrong there. So that's my quick prep

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for what I think I'm going to
do on the upcoming trips. And in

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a couple of weeks you'll hear what
I actually did, because I'll have the

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portable recorder with me. If I
had one day in Los Angeles and you

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know what, and this first trip
out, I have several trips daily the

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summer. On the first one,
I have one day Santa Monica is what

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I'm gonna do. You can follow
this show for free on Apple Podcasts or

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Spotify, wherever you get your shows. See you next week.