westcoastprairiegirl

A lot can still happen when you’re in Los Angeles for just 48 hours (with 18 of those hours used for sleeping to prep for the 25 hour drive home to Vancouver).

We witnessed a movie-style, yet real-life police takedown.
It involved a police car speeding backwards along a pedestrian road, suddenly stopping, police jumping out of the car and pulling out their guns with a police helicopter hovering above them.  We determined that Venice Beach may not be the best place to hang out once the sun goes down.

Armando and Jef almost died at Six Flags.
Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic but the situation could have been fatal.  Unbeknownst to them, after getting off a roller coaster they took a wrong turn through a sliding door that should not have been open and started walking on the roller coaster tracks.  But the roller coaster track looked more like a pathway than a track so they didn’t realize they were walking on the track until they turned a corner and saw the steep incline of the track and realized where they were.  Had the next car started down the track, it could have crushed them but they made it back to safe ground just in the nick of time as the panicked Six Flag attendants looked on.

We learned that there is a secret menu at In-N-Out Burger.
If you’ve never heard of In-N-Out Burger, it’s a fast food burger joint in the Southwest USA, primarily in California.  Super popular.  Known for their all-fresh ingredients.  Cheap and a menu of only like, 4 items.  Or so the newbie thinks.  Fortunately, we met up with a local friend while we were there and he told us about the “secret menu”.  Fries, animal-style.  Burgers, protein-style.  Fries, well-done.  Burgers, animal-style.  The 3×3.  The 4×4.  We fell in deep like with In-N-Out Burger on our second visit, knowing the “secret menu”. (Yes, we went there twice in 48 hours.  Don’t judge us.)

What else did we squeeze in?
Hollywood Boulevard, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Beverly Hills, lunch on the Sunset Strip, Rodeo Drive, Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier, the Hollywood Sign.  Some we just caught glimpses of as we drove past or walked by as we checked it off our list of places to see. But for 48 hours we fit enough in to get a feel for LA.  It’s a surreal place where the down-and-out live next door to Hollywood celebrities.  It’s not a pretty city but it has character built on the eccentrics that make LA home.

Worth the drive?  For the city…sure.  For the experience shared with our good friends…definitely!

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