We are on the first of two of this year’s midsummer roadtrips, the great American tradition. There are six of us (Kim and me, daughter Carolyn and John, and Charlotte & Evelyn) from three generations driving around California in an SUV designed to hold six people and just barely enough luggage for five days and four nights. I am no Chevy Chase, but there are moments when this all feels like a scene from National Lampoon’s Vacation as we motor around in our great American family Truckster. I’m not altogether sure why we consider this a good thing to do but in the end, it is fun and the togetherness aspect is all part of that fun. I know enough about my granddaughters to know not to plan too much driving on one day unless it is our heading-home day. The only thing that makes togetherness less appealing is car sickness.
On Monday, we headed up the coast towards Los Angeles. That thought alone usually incites some fear in me because the LA Basin is never child’s play. Carolyn, who is a big fan of American kitsch, wanted to stop for lunch at the King’s Hawaiian Bakery & Restaurant in Torrance, so that’s where we headed first. Other than me finding out that Hawaiian cuisine cannot avoid having bits and pieces of fish paste mixed in with its dishes (not altogether unpleasant, but still fish…yuk!), we had a perfectly nice lunch. I timed it so that we were exactly an hour from our final destination for the day, which was the Garland Hotel in North Hollywood very near our true destination of Universal Studios. The Garland is actually a very nice hotel in what I would call the old Hollywood style, which seemed less touristy, even though it’s not, than the modern 20 story hotels that surround the park. They make it easy to get to the park by having a cute trolley that takes you the 10 minutes through the streets of Studio City, up the hill to the entrance of the theme park.
After checking in, we connected with ur friends Gary & Oswaldo, who are West Hollywood residents and who know the Garland quite well. That said, it was still amazing to me (and a testament to the physical spread of the LA basin) that they said it took them 40 minutes to drive to the hotel since they chose to come “over the hill” on Mulholland Drive. It don’t get more Hollywood than that. After a drink at the Garland’s lovely courtyard bar, we trollied up the hill to Universal’s City Walk. City Walk is a brilliant attraction addition for a park like Universal because it allows locals or non-theme-park sorts to have a place where they can come and enjoy an afternoon or evening without an entrance fee and yet still drop some coin at one of the many eateries or shops along the half mile of pleasant yet somewhat artificially fabricated city streets. Given that entrance to the park costs $100 – $180 per person, we wanted to focus our visit on Tuesday, so City Walk was the perfect venue for Monday evening. The only challenge was finding a restaurant (they are all pretty much chain restaurants) that would work for the more discerning Gary. We ended up at the NBC Experience, which is a great big sports bar with massive video screens and whatever seasonal sports is on TV, which in July is mostly baseball. Baseball is Gary’s game, so we thought it appropriate. It was a loud but festive evening and we were all glad to trolley back down the hill to the Garland and call it a night.
Tuesday morning dawned with a thankfully mild mist that bode well for a day of moderate and not too hot theme park weather. We breakfasted with Carolyn, the resident worrier, watching the trolley loading like a hawk. I finally convinced her that the Garland was very capable of getting all of its clientele up to Universal Studios in prompt fashion since the park is very much their occupancy bread and butter. Carolyn is nothing if not an expert in theme park maximization strategy, so we followed her lead on where to go at the opening bell. We began with a forced march to the Studio Tour entrance. This is my kind of theme park ride…an open-air trolly that drives around the lot (upper and lower) and shows you the real deal working studio lot, complete with celebrity trailers and catering trucks, with costumed extras walking in and out of massive sound stages. It’s always fun to see the city street scenes and the suburban development scenes we have watched as the backdrop to thousands of movies and TV shows over the years. The roadside banners of all the great movies produced by Universal over the years is also noteworthy. Naturally, no theme park ride is complete without some manufactured drama, so the ride does also include a Jurassic Park meets King Kong 3D shake n’bake as well as the 50-year anniversary Jaws Amityville set designed and narrated by Steven Spielberg. The challenge for Universal must be in curating the old movie scenes for the older generations like Kim and me and still including the connection to the newest films for the younger generations. I was glad to see that they have kept the old Bates Motel scene where Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was made famous. Finding a Norman Bates look-alike to stand on the porch looking menacing with a butcher’s knife must also be a quarterly or monthly ritual in the park’s HR department.
After that opening hour, the rest of the park visit was about one ride and one character photo opp after another. Some of the rides Kim and I went on, one of the rides only I refrained (much to Kim’s eventual chagrin, since it made her nauseous), and several of them we all went on. The extra $80 per person for the Fast Pass addition is really worthwhile at Universal since few seem to get it and the lines were non-existent. Carolyn explained to me that since going on EVERY ride was part of her theme park objective, the Fast Pass allowed Universal to be a one-day rather than two-day stop. Disneyland was three days last week for them, so I was not about to argue with anything that kept the theme park timeframe to a minimum. The highlights of the day included the big Jurassic Park “Log Flume” ride that had added big spray fountains on the final drop that drenched us all from the waist up (only Kim bothered to buy a disposable poncho), and me getting to sit next to a plastic Simpson’s character (Milhouse) and having to get up every few minutes for some father to photo opp his kid sitting where I was trying to sit.
I spent my day at the park in good humor, but left a bit before the others to retrieve the car from the Garland, load up the luggage and return to the park to pick up the gang. That gave them all an extra few hours to finish off their ride agenda and buy whatever theme park souvenirs their hearts desired, while I got to feel like I had done my duty as a faithful and even-keeled grandfather for the day.
It’s pretty obvious that a big piece of you is still a little boy:) Which is somewhat rare among folks your age, and greatly appreciated by your partner, your children, your grandchildren, your sisters and your cousins and your aunts.