Wow LA is crazy. I think there are about 7 lanes of traffic and a cloud of smog that kinda hangs over the city. We spent 4 days in LA and started by visiting the Venice Beach area. Here we saw the infamous muscle beach, those guys are huge. Rich wanted to challenge them to a lift off but I had to persuade him that he wasn't quite packing as much muscle under his vest as the other guys. His was more of a 24 pack than a six pack! The beach was white sand and scattered with those white lifeguard huts and trucks as per Baywatch. I think that's why Rich was so keen to take a stroll down there, i'm sure he was looking out for Pamela Anderson or Carmen Electra or something. Unfortunately the biggest boobs he got to see belonged to the guys at muscle beach !!! The following day we visited Universal Studios. Think we deserved a little light relief after travelling over 8,000 miles in just a few weeks. This place is brilliant ! They have a new ride called The Mummy! It's an awesome rollercoaster with loads of horrid effects as per the film, you think the ride has finished but then it does it all again backwards ! Quite hair raising but luckily our breakfast was still in tact. After this ride we proceded to the Jurassic Park ride. Now this is definately deceiving. The ride begins by entering the herbivore paddock, you know those dinosaurs in the film with the dopey looking faces and long necks, anyway after that you kinda travel up a hill on this rollercoaster and then all the horrid stuff starts. Nasty looking dinosaurs appear, hissing and spitting then you see T rex at the top of the hill, who lets out a huge roar and finally you are filled with the gut wrenching anticipation of the 82 ft sheer drop into the water. Was great fun though. We also rode the Back to the future ride where you climb into a Dolorian car and take a 3D special effects ride through different ages in time. This also made your stomach turn over but always great to be reminded of an 80's film classic. The Universal studio's tour took us past some great film sets, such as Jaws, Pyscho, War of the Worlds and apparently the day we were there, they were filming Pirates of the Carribean 3 and Desperate Housewives. On our final day in LA we did what all tourists should do. Yes we bought a Star Map and scoured Beverley Hills like all true stalkers would, ducking and diving outside people's driveways, trying to look inconspicuous. The problem was the map was so damn huge that there was no hiding that thing! After a few hours we had success in finding the Osbournes house, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockharts, Dustin Hoffman, Winona Ryder, Paul McCartney,Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando's last residence, John Travolta, Matthew Perry and the grand finale, The Playboy mansion although sadly no sighting of Hugh Hefner (maybe he was taking an afternoon nap). All in all saw a few properties but no definite sighting of celebs. We think we may have seen Matthew McConauhey, Courteney Love and Eddie Murphy. We finished our trip by a drive across Rodeo drive and took a look at the stars on Hollywood Boulevard. I must admit I had always imagined the stars to be in a more upmarket location, Hollywood Boulevard is just a regular street in LA which has it share of drug dealers and homeless like any other big city so a little disappointing. Next stop Mexico, now the real journey begins (cringe)!