Our RV Adventures

As I mentioned yesterday, it was a traveling day.

And travel we did.

About 10 am yesterday, Jan and I, and Nick and Terry packed up, and after quick stop at the bank, headed for Los Angeles, about 280 miles away. We were going so that we all could attend a taping of The Talk talk show (actually two shows).

After about two hours on the road, we made a pit stop at Primm, NV.

Primm is kind of interesting. You’re driving thru the desert on I-15 heading south and you come over a hill, and suddenly spread out in front of you is a small city. Only it’s not really a city. It’s just 3 big casino/hotels, a roller coaster, several restaurants, two gas station/convenience stores, and a large outlet mall. The only inhabitants are pretty much the employees of the casinos.

Its real claim to fame is that it straddles I-15 right on the Nevada/California state line, and is the closest place you can come to gamble from California.

And being on the state line, it actually was called State Line, Nevada until 1996 when they changed the name to Primm, after the original developer of the city, Ernest Jay Primm. Apparently people kept confusing it with Stateline (note, no space) up in northern Nevada.

After another pit stop in Barstow, CA we got to our Day’s Inn in Fullerton, CA about 3:30 and got checked in.

About 4:15 we headed out to Esther’s Taco House in Placentia, about 10 miles away. We’d been looking forward to this since we were here last year, and wanted to introduce Nick and Terry to the place.

It is very possibly the best Mexican food I’ve ever eaten. The only other place that could come close would be our recently-discovered La Fonda in Camp Verde, AZ. Too bad we won’t be able to come back again until next year.

Leaving Esther’s about 6 pm, we headed about 30 miles away to Studio City in Hollywood. Studio City is where The Talk is taped and I wanted to check out the route and get some idea of the traffic for tomorrow morning when we have to be at the studio by 9:45 am. It took about a hour this evening so I’m going to allow two hours tomorrow morning.

Nick is not going to be happy about this. Nick doesn’t do ‘morning’ very well. In fact, not at all, really.

After scoping out where we’ll park tomorrow we headed back toward our hotel, making a detour through Hollywood proper.

Actually though, there is no city called Hollywood. Hollywood is really just a defined district of Los Angeles. There is however, a West Hollywood, and a North Hollywood.

Hollywood was really a city between 1903 and 1910, but voted to become part of Los Angeles to get access to LA’s water supply.

Jan wanted to run into one of the souvenir places next to Grauman’s Chinese Theater to get another copy of the Hollywood Stars map that not only shows the star’s homes but also landmarks and famous crime scenes. She lost the one she bought last year.

After some sightseeing in the area on Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset Blvd, we headed back to the hotel, but first making a quick stop at Baskin-Robbins for a cold treat.

More tomorrow from The Talk.

I’ve reposted our visit to the the taping of the Bonnie Hunt Show last year.

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Thought for the Day:

Some minds are like cement; thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.

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The Bonnie Hunt Show x 2…

Originally posted on April 20, 2010

Today was a twofer. We were going to attend the taping of two episodes of the Bonnie Hunt Show at 2pm and 6pm.

The 2pm show will be aired tomorrow, April 21st, and the 6pm show will air on Thursday, April 22nd.

We left the rig about 9 am, because we wanted to have plenty of time to have lunch before the taping, and also allow for any traffic delays.

We decided to eat at a place about a block from the studio called Kay & Dave’s Mexican Cantina. Jan had a two item combo plate and I had a lunch special, with chicken tortilla soup, salad with lime-cilantro dressing, and a chile relleno. The relleno wasn’t as good as Esther’s last week, but it all was good.

We had to check in before noon at gate 2 of The Culver Studios, where The Bonnie Hunt Show is taped.

The Culver Studios, under various names and owners, has been around since 1918. It has been called RKO, Desilu, and Hughes Studios, among others, and owned by such as Cecil B. Demille, Lucy and Desi Arnez, and Howard Hughes,

Movies such as Gone with the Wind, King Kong, Citizen Kane, A Star is Born, and E.T. were filmed here. And TV shows like Batman, Lassie, The Andy Griffith Show, Hogan’s Heroes, The Untouchables, The Real McCoys, and more recently, The Nanny, Deal Or No Deal, Las Vegas, Mad About You, Scrubs, and, of course, The Bonnie Hunt Show were/are filmed here.

After standing in line a few minutes, we were given badges with our seating number on them, in our case, 80 and 81, After about 30 minutes we were lead to an outdoor seating area where we stayed until about 30 minutes before show time. At that time we were taken to our seats in the studio. But before that we had to go thru a security check, including metal detectors. This was to insure that we had no cell phones or cameras with us.

Which is why we have absolutely NO pictures of anything to do with the show.

And they fed us too. As we were walking in, they handing us a hot dog wrapped in foil and a can of root beer.

Then about 15 minutes, Bill, the warmup guy, came out and got things started by telling jokes, asking questions of the audience, and telling us how the show was going to work.

The show, like most talk shows, is taped in real time, In other words, It takes one hour to tape the show. When it’s time for a commercial, they keep the tape rolling in black, and everyone on stage takes a break for 60, 120, or however many seconds the commercial break lasts, and then the show picks back up.

During the break, people swarm out on the stage, ladies touching up hair and makeup of both Bonnie and her guests, sound guys checking mics, lighting people checking, well, lights, and other staff talking with Bonnie about things on the show.

Then, poof, about 5 seconds before the end of the break, everyone disappears, and Bonnie looks up at the camera and says “Welcome back”. It’s all very smooth.

The first show’s guest were Brian Austin Green and Yvette Nicole Brown. Toward the end of the show, Bonnie did her regular “Dessert of the Day” segment, which was a Boston Cream Cupcake, And we all got one. Staffers passed out boxes to each of us, but asked us not to eat them till later.

About 10 minutes after the show was over, they set up for a pickup. A pickup is a guest segment to be inserted into a later show. In this case it was Anthony Anderson from Law & Order. He taped a segment with Bonnie that will be used in a show sometime next week.

After that, Bonnie came out in the audience and walked around, thanking people for coming. A really nice touch.

By then it was about 3:30 and we were told to be back for the second taping about 4:45 pm. We decided to go back to the same place we had lunch and just share an order of nachos and an order of apple-cranberry bread pudding, since we were still pretty full from lunch.

Back at the studio we were lead back in right on time. They also tried to give us another hot dog and root beer, but we turned them down.

Bill, the warmup guy, told us that one of the listed guests, Ed Begley, Jr., of Living with Ed, would not be there, but we were supposed to clap when his name was mentioned anyway. Bill said that Ed Begley’s segment would be taped later and inserted in the show, just like Anthony Anderson’s was done earlier.

The other guest were Patrick Warburton of “Rules of Engagement” and “Seinfeld”, and Robert Keenan, the director of the movie “Food, Inc.”

The other neat thing was we got some giveaways. We each got a T-shirt, a DVD and s book of the nature film by Disney called “Earth”, and a DVD of the movie “Food, Inc”.

Again, after the show was over, Bonnie came out and walked around the audience, talking to people and thanking them for coming. And this time Jan got to shake her hand.

It was about 7:45 pm by the time we were heading back to the truck, and it was about 9:15 by the time we got back home.

A long day, but a fun day.

And tomorrow, still more fun.

We going to take a tour of the movie stars homes. I think we’ll probably just see a lot of big, locked gates, but we’ll see.

Today is a traveling day for us. I’ll have an update tomorrow.

In the meantime I’ve reposted our visit to New York City in July of 2009.

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Thought for the Day:

I was very thoughtless today.

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Where’s the Big Monkey?

Originally posted on July 28, 2009

Jan and I spent our last day in New York visiting the Empire State Building, having lunch, cappuccino, and cheesecake at Junior’s in Times Square, and fulfilling a major item on Jan’s bucket list.

We caught the 8:45 am train into the city to Penn Station/Madison Square Garden and then walked the 3 long blocks (New York’s blocks in Manhattan are rectangles, not square. They’re about 1000 ft x 250 ft.) over to the Empire State Building at 5th Ave. and 33rd St.

ESB from Penn Station

We got to the ESB about 10:30 am, hoping we were early enough to avoid the large crowds that can be there.  Apparently,  it can take as long as 3-4 hours to get in on some days,  but we lucked up.

ESB Lobby

It was easy to see the 1930′s Art Deco influence in everything from the murals to the floor.

ESB Floor

After going thru security (just like the airport, except you can keep your shoes on)  we got on the first elevator about 11:00 am.

It takes two elevators to get to the 86th floor observation deck.  The first one takes you to the 80th floor and then another one takes you to the 86th.

ESB Queue LIne

It was easy to see that they were set up to handle really large crowds, so I’m glad we got there early.

The view from the 86th floor is amazing. There’s just a wire fence separating you from thin air.

ESB Observation Deck

All the New York landmarks were visible, like the Chrysler Building,

Chrysler Building

the Flatiron Building,

Flatiron Building

and Central Park.

Central Park

Looking down, it looks like toy buildings on the model railroad layout.

Toy Buildings

I then paid extra to take another elevator up to the 102th floor, but it was a disappointment.  It was small and completely enclosed. You also had to dodge the large metal beams that support the tower on top of the ESB.

102th Floor

Here’s Jan and I on top.

High Atop The ESB

We were out of the ESB by noon, so we made good time.  I tried to take a picture straight up from the street, but this is all you can see, due to the inset of the top floors of the building.

ESB From the Street

From here we took a cab over to 45th St and Times Square to have lunch at Junior’s ,  a place famous for their cheesecake in the Theater district since the  1950′s.  Their carrot cake cheesecake is probably the best pie or cake of any kind I have ever eaten.

Walking back over to Broadway, Jan got her picture taken with a world-famous New York celebrity, The Naked Cowboy.

Naked Cowboy 1

Naked Cowboy 2

Naked Cowboy 3

I think she was enjoying this entirely too much.  And why isn’t there a Naked Cowgirl, anyway?

And the Naked Cowboy is also running for Mayor of New York.

Naked Cowboy for Mayor

He has a bevy of beautiful blondes running around handing out campaign literature, but could I get my picture taken with them?  Nooooo!

A recent article says he makes between 3 and 4 hundred dollars an hour doing this and only works between 11 am and 2 pm each day.  There are pictures of him, dressed just like this,  standing in 6 inches of snow.

I think I’d worry about frostbite myself.

We then sat on the lawn chairs on Broadway and watch the world go by for a while.

On Broadway

Looking up, we could see the New Year’s Eve ball resting at the bottom of the column for 2009.

Times Square Ball

It sure seems like the column is taller on TV.

About 3 pm we caught a cab back to Penn Station to start the journey back to Florida, NY where we’re parked.

It’s a two part train ride. First we catch a train from Penn Station to Secaucus Junction, in Secaucus, NJ.

Although not as big as Penn Station, Secaucus Junction is really a very beautiful station.

Secaucus Junction

Then we catch the 4:18 pm Port Jervis train out to Harriman, NY where we left our truck at the Park and Ride, finally getting home about 5:30 pm.

Not bad, but I’d hate to have to do it every day, like many people do.

More tomorrow…

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