Mon, 01/20/25 Los Angeles

Day 16 - Monday, January 20, 2025 – Los Angeles

Everybody had to get off the ship Monday morning. We got up early period we had breakfast in the room. Then we left before 8:00. We didn't know how long it would take to get off the ship and then get through immigration. Yes, we had to go through immigration because we had visited other countries. It was clear but cold. We are in Los Angeles so you would think it would be warm, but when we get off this ship it was 45°. I brought along layers so I could dress accordingly. The sun was warm, but there was a pretty stiff wind. As I'm sure I've mentioned it earlier, I'm getting wimpy. Even Mary brought her layers. We wanted to be prepared for the next six or seven hours. Getting off the ship wasn't too difficult. There were just a lot of people going in a lot of different directions. We made it down into the immigration building. We went in front of the officer and he looked at our passports, looked at us then waved us through. We knew we were to meet our tour guide at Pier 93. As it turns out, it was only a couple 100 feet from where we left the building. We were early, so we waited for probably 30 minutes. Mary called the tour guide and he said that he was 15 minutes away, which turned into 30. Not a big deal. When he finally pulls up, he pulls up in a Dodge Caravan, almost identical to ours except this one is gray.

Monty is our tour guide. We are in LA. Would you be surprised if I said Monty is a comedian, actor, filmmaker and tour guide. Would you expect anything different? Of course, he's animated. This is not criticism, just an observation. He asks us what we wanna see. Mary and I are both open, but we know we wanted to stop at Chase Bank and a Walgreens. So, off we go.

I'm gonna say this up front because when Monty put the car into drive, he started talking. Five hours later when he finally put the van back into park, was the first time he stopped talking. Of course some of this was Mary and asking him questions about this and that, but in reality the guy knows his stuff. He pointed out things that no other tour guide every word. You've done extensive research on the history of the various areas we visited. “Jim Morrison lived there.” “The Red Hot Chili Peppers played on this rooftop.” “This is the gym where Arnold Schwarzenegger works out today." “This is the original Muscle Beach. The current Muscle Beach was made popular by Arnold. The original one dates back to the thirties.” Extensive commentary on every studio in town. I don't know how to explain it exactly, not only did he know his stuff, but he delivered it in a way where it was entertaining. It wasn't a boring monologue. Had I counted the number of facts that he threw at us over the five hours we were with him it would be into the hundreds, I'm sure. That's worth the price of admission by itself.

The streets and highways are suspiciously quiet from Monday morning until we realized it is a federal holiday period plus; it is the inauguration day. That is a good thing, because the traffic was not an issue. Nonetheless, it takes us about 1/2 hour to get to Santa Monica pier. This was our first stop. He dropped us off Then for the next 45 minutes or so Mary and I wandered around on the pier. I got to use my smart drive which helped a little. The pier happens to be the end of Route 66. Where I worked in Chicago at Wabash and Jackson was the start of Route 66. So, now I can say I've seen both ends of Route 66. Of course, I'm sure Mary wants to travel the whole route at some point. It's got to be on one of her lists, I'm sure. 😊

We drove about 15 minutes over to Venice. Back in the early 1900s, this area was actually like Venice Italy with canals, etcetera. People would take the boat to work. Monty even had pictures on his phone which verified this. For me it was difficult to comprehend, but the picture was worth 1000 words. At some point in the 40s it was turned back into normal streets.

We found a Walgreens. We found the Chase Bank, but it was closed because of the holiday so we were only able to get money out of the ATM. We want to try to get more money out of the ATM in Honolulu, but we're set for now. I'm trying to think through how much actual cash we will need for the next 100 days. We only spend it when we were at shore and usually just for tips. Mary was able to get me 12 cans of monster at Walgreens. She's in the running for wife of the year.

I don't remember the exact order anymore, but we drove past countless studios, rodeo drive, Beverly Hills, the Hollywood sign, and other things I cannot think of right now. We got out of the car again at a place called the Farmers Market. The huge area of open air stores. We stopped and had lunch here. Mary had a salad. I had a tuna dish. Mary found postcards in stamps. We found a refrigerator magnet. The only thing we could not find were t-shirts. We'll have to figure that out. We made our way back to the ship. We said our goodbyes. It was a very successful trip in Los Angeles.

Back on the ship, we were both pretty beat up. We came upstairs and took micro naps. We did go to dinner, but I don't remember exactly what we had. By the time we were done with dinner come on we made it upstairs and headed straight to bed.