TPIR and The Rest

So, our official Rose Parade Tour is over, so we chose to move to a different, less expensive hotel for two more nights and see a few more sights. We had a few hours where we were homeless-we couldn't check in to our new hotel yet, but we did check our luggage. We moved to the Hampton Inn and Suites in Los Angeles Here's a link. It is a BEAUTIFUL small hotel. It's not in the BEST neighborhood, but it's a really nice hotel and a great location to see things.

It's January 2nd, Iowa has just lost fabulously in their bowl game, the Cheez-it Bowl. Our hotel gives a little goodie bag when you check in, here's what was in our bag. LOL!!

There is free breakfast, but we had to get moving early each day of our stay, so never got to try it out! But I LOVE these chairs that are in the breakfast room! Anyways, off we go! So, my younger sister, Anita, lives not too far away from where we are staying. And it's my day to be at the beach. Her and her hubby drove down from their mountain to see us and we went to Santa Monica Pier.

We had a delicious lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

And the day was beautiful!

The Santa Monica peir is the end of Route 66, and has so much to see. There's an amusement park, there's shops and games and all kinds of fun!

Me, My sister and MCR. 

We couldn't have asked for a better day! I only wished it lasted longer! But it was important to get a good night sleep, we were off to our taping of The Price Is Right in the morning.

I ordered tickets to the taping Here. Then a few weeks after I got tickets, they sent an email telling us our taping would be for a TPIR at Night episode and that it would be a Super Bowl Special! We were asked to appear in NFL team gear and represent our favorites! I ordered a San Francisco 49ers jersey, George Kittle-he played at Iowa and was good, and is really good now! MCR went with the home team Vikings! It was a rainy morning, but not cold, and here's the line when we arrived. Thankfully, we had Priority tickets and moved to the front of a different line!

Here we are in line.

And here we are getting our name tags-notice were were just a number before this!

And just like I imagined, there is a person sitting there writing names on stickers one by one.

Here's MCR getting named!

And there is the photo op!

Our episode will air on Feb 7. It will be a night time episode, so look for us. This is us in the room where all the contestants are seated, then in groups of ten we went to be interviewed. Now the fella that provided the room with information told us that they look for folks who are loud and excited and crazy. 

Not exactly our vibe, but hey, we're in Hollywood and we can ACT! Our 10 person group was led into the room for the interview and the yelling and jumping around and excitement started! Everyone in out group was very excited and enthusiastic. I thought we all did really well. Well, you'll have to watch the show, but I can tell you, we were not selected to Come On Down.

It was late by the time we got done at the taping, we took an uber back to the hotel got changed and got tickets for a tourist, see the stars homes tour! I booked us on a Surf City Tour, but it turns out most of the differently named tours are run by the same folks. Anyways, we boarded the 4:00 tour bus and were off like a bat outta hell! Up the mountain! Seriously, our driver had skills! We were hanging on for dear life! 

The bus drove us past a lot of movie sites, the hotel where Richard Gere climbs the fire escape in Pretty Woman, Terminator, quite a few others.

I got horrible pictures! The sun started setting, and it was beautiful! But the fast bus made it almost impossible to get good pictures!

Our driver was also pretty funny-he realized we were mostly looking at gates and fences but made funny jokes and chatted up everyone on the bus.

If you wanted to hike up to the Hollywood sign this is where you'd park to do that. No thanks!

Nice views of LA. I loved this view!

I was stupid and chose not to bring a coat, but as the sun went down it got COLD in the open sided bus!

There were a lot of beautiful homes in the Laurel Canyon area. I can totally see why folks would choose to live there.

Ha, I caught a car! 

Absolutely stunning views!

Very twisty turning roads up and down the mountain. 

I'm sure the bus driver told us whose homes were hanging on the sides of the canyon, but I didn't retain that information.

And unfortunately, I really only got pictures from one side of the bus. 

These adorable young boys were on the other side, it was funny the bus driver would say things like, you know the Puff Daddy? The kids would look at him like he was nuts and then he'd say you know P Diddy? And they'd go all, yeah, yeah! It was funny they were too young to know almost all of the star references. But they had a good time!

Anyway, we made our way down the mountain into Beverly Hills.

It was starting to get dark and it was really a beautiful evening-chilly for the dummy who didn't bring a coat though.

This tour was totally worth the $40! I'd recommend it to anyone-but bring a coat if you're on the late tour! Take a look at the gas prices $5.29. On Sunset Blvd, across from the Whiskey-a-Go-Go.

And then before I knew it! Off to home!

All the junk in my back pack bag.  So glad to be home. I got a little bit of beach time and had such a good time with My Cousin Robin. 

Next year when I watch the Rose Parade, I can say I saw that live!

Mornings at the Beaches in FLA

 SO we made it over to the beach-thank goodness-this is the beach at Lori Wilson Park. We got there early enough to rent lounge chairs and an umbrella for $25! DEAL!!!!

 It was wonderful. The beach on the right coast-near Cocoa Beach- is like course ground pepper, not super smooth and very hot to walk on! The water though is great! Warm and salty!LOL!

We stopped at Jenna's Breezeway for lunch after a stop at the Ron Jon Surf Shop for souvenir shopping. Mexican Monday-2 tacos for $3, best deal of the day!!

On Wednesday we went to the left coast, Clearwater Beach! On the way we came across this restaurant, And since it was raining stopped in for a little lunch.

 Pete & Shorty started out in Iowa and came here back in the 70's.

 The original bar is in Clarksville, Iowa and is memorialized in a picture here.

 They have a really great looking outdoor patio with this water feature!

The rain passed by, like it does most days, so we hit Clearwater Beach!

 

 Beautiful beach! Soft white sand on the left coast. We brought our own chairs this time.

 The water is so warm! And the beach has tons of seashells-I scooped up a handful!

 And there's a pirate ship! They take folks around the bay sightseeing. We had a great time watching the people in kayaks and jetskis. The breeze was perfect-keep a hold of your umbrella though!

 

Clouds started to move in so we moved on to see the Sunshine Skyway Bridge South of Tampa. The traffic was crazy around Tampa,

 We saw Tampa Bay's firefighters at an accident-imagine that...they all drive like they're on fire!!

 The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is about 4 miles long and it rained like crazy until we got in sight of it....

 I hung out the window to get pictures, but it was kind of foggy, and I didn't do a very good job....

 I always think they should have scenic turnouts at these places, but they never do!

 I really doesn't look like much approaching it, but wow, is it a big bridge!!!

 It's probably some kind of modern marvel of cable bridges

 Here's a better picture from Google

 Anyways, we stopped on the far side and you can see it in the distance, but it's pretty foggy after all the rain.

So that was about all the beach fun on this trip. I could hang around the ocean all day long, but the Row by Row Quilt challenge started on THursday so we made the rounds....I'll post that adventure soon!