Cassandra's Siren Song
Hollywood, CA
Date: March 6th & 7th
The Drive to:
3am on Friday March 6th was when the adventure began! We packed the car with snacks, drinks, emergency car care, and our baggage and stopped to top off the gas tank and get ice for the chest. Now just like everything else in my life, things got weird right away. (I warned Nicole DollFace, but I don't think she fully believed me) As we are paying for the gas (and some fake hostess donuts because the stupid donut man doesn't come until 5am) the clerk who is a big and tall man sees my cheek piercings and takes that as a sign to tell us all about his....nipple rings, you know that was exactly what I wanted to hear about that morning.
Then we were on our safe drive through endless amounts of sage brush and creepy little towns. (Just a side not Johannesburg, CA has the cleanest porta-potties!). On the drive I will admit that I did try to kill us once, while driving around a turn with a semi-truck coming the opposite way, I took this perfect opportunity to take my jacket off.
Visit to Downey, CA:
Our first stop was the town of Downey, CA we arrived around 10am (I think we made good time) and started our search for the Downey Asylum. (To read more about the asylum and see more pictures click the button below the picture). After 30 or so minutes of finding the asylum and a place to park we were both 100% ready to get out of the car! As we were walking around taking some pictures, a cop car pulled up and sat and watched us the entire time, it was pretty peculiar.
This looks like it was the main building of the asylum
P.S. This goes no where at the moment :)
Once the asylum was checked out it was time to eat and head to Hollywood!
Someone did her make up in the car, leaving me to look like a troll alone......
That's my awesome no makeup face :)
The Arrival & Hotel:
First off, anyone who lives in California and can navigate those freeways GOOD FOR YOU! That was the most confusing drive of my life! If I had to find my way back without GPS I would just start living in my car and get a job, because there would be no way I would get home.
We stayed at the Comfort Inn on Sunset Blvd. It was a really nice hotel, and the one staff member we met was really friendly and welcoming. The bed was so snuggly and the room was just lovely, but I did have a couple of small complaints. I drive a Mitsubishi eclipse, a relatively small car, this parking lot was so small it was scary with my car! ( If you have a big vehicle I would advise another hotel.) We also didn't have a remote for the TV or shower curtain, neither was really a problem we weren't in the room much and I wasn't against flooding the bathroom in the morning.
So Nicole Dollface and I have hugely different personalities, but we mesh together really well and I think it has to do with those personality differences. Within minutes of checking in I noticed how different our beds looked! I was ALL over the place, and she was perfectly set up.
Nicole Dollface
Cassandra Skully
Getting Ready to get pretty
After Nicole Dollface was unpacked and I had my stuff all over, we got dressed up a little looked at a map and headed out to check out Hollywood Blvd.
I'm an angel
Some street Art
The Museum of Death
One place I've wanted to go since I learned it existed was the Museum of Death in Hollywood, CA. The staff was friendly and described the tour and the sections before entering. (Please be aware before planning a trip the museum was extremely graphic)
Upon entering the museum the works of famous serial killers surround you, including paintings and letters. Once past the serial killers you pass by an old electric chair and enter "funeral home", where you can "put the fun back in funeral". The room is filled with items you would find in a funeral home, along with a training video about embalming. There is also a baby funeral display, including a casket and photos of a Siamese baby that was joined at the chest.
As you pass to the next room, the walls are covered in photographs that were taken by murders of their "work". The next room that you view is the "Helter Skelter" room filled with famous Hollywood murders; such as the Black Dahlia. The other side of the room included pictures of the Tate-LaBianca murder scenes.
Following the Helter Skelter room, is a recreated scene of the Heaven's Gate Cult and a room dedicated to the Mason family.
The end of the hall has a small assassination corner with pictures of Abraham Lincoln and a beautiful bust of JFK, with part of the head broken out.
Once past the assassination corner is a small closest room full of taxidermy animals, and animals preserved in fluid (I have no idea what this is called)
Then before you exit the museum you end in the "Theater" which continuously plays the infamous Traces of death, with is real life and not re-enacted death footage.
Once you exit the museum there is a tiny gift shop that you can purchase something to remember your visit with. The gift shop did include some of the preserved and taxidermy animals, and a pretty cool shrunken head.
Although the museum was full of authentic items and a lot of interesting information, I don't believe this was worth the $15 that was charged to enter. (Pictures were not allowed, so I just got some from outside.)
The side of the building was the word Hollywood in skulls
Standing outside with the open sign
Ripley's Believe It Or Not Odditorium:
The next adventure took place in Ripley's Believe it Or Not Odditorium.
This one has FAR to much too even try to describe everything we saw, for anyone who hasn't toured a Ripley's odditorium there are multiple interactive displays and it is a ton of fun with or without kids!
Robert Pershing Wadlow is the tallest man in medical history. Standing at 8 feet 11.1 inches andwore a size 36 shoe
I'm 5'1
She's 5'6
This is my shocked face
Nicole DollFace's size 10 shoe compared to Mr. Wadlows
It's weird that they have the same skin tone
I don't remember who this man/woman was! I just remember a HUGE list of things they ate every single day!
JT Saylors otherwise known as "Rubber Face" was famous for putting his bottom lip over his nose
I think Nicole DollFace is in LOVE
I look really confused for some reason
I don't remember who this little guy was, but MAN I felt tall!
Erik Sprague is known as the Lizardman. He is most recognized for this body modifications, including his sharpened teeth, full body tattoo of green scales, bifurcated tongue (split tongue), subdermal implants, and freen inked lips
We do look cute together
A replica of the Transformer Bumble Bee make from car parts.
I wanted me picture with him, but I was only as tall as his junk
Metal Spider Man is totally looking down my shirt!
The Throne of Love, telling Nicole DollFace she is bossy
The Night Life
The day was over and we get dolled up so we could check out the Hollywood night life.
This is my Sexy face!
I didn't know this but the Grauman's Chinese Theatre has people that stand in front of it dress like crazy characters. As soon as we were in sight, Tinkerbell ran over to me and grabbed my face and told me how beautiful she thought I was. Once I escaped the grasp of Tinkerbell, Edwardscisscor hands locked eyes with me and kept trying to wave me over WITH HIS BIG ASS SCISSCORS! All I did was shake my head and walk faster. We almost reach the end of the crazy parade and Capitan Jack Sparrow attempts to talk to us, and apparently he took his costume very seriously and doesn't bath.......
We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe' it was delish! We each ordered a fancy drink, spent WAY to much money on it, got tipsy off of the one drink! We did get to keep the glasses :)
Just hanging out in an empty bar
"The USA Govt secretly poisons the homeless"
After dinner on the way out of the Hard Rock I saw Batman! I <3 Batman and wanted a picture. He hears me say "It's Batman!" and walks over to us, then give me the LOOOONGEST and creepiest hug after which he doesn't let go. He starts to ask where I'm going, what I'm doing, what hotel I'm staying at. He even offered to wear the Batsuit in the hotel....
I just started to walk away and he followed me! FOR 3 BLOCKS! Finally he got the hint that I wasn't going to him back to the hotel and pouted and said "Guess you are going to have fun without me"
After we lose The Batman, we somehow find the only empty bar, and stop in for a quick drink.
We decide to call it a night and head back to the hotel. on the way back we found a lovely little message
The Sign
The next morning before we left Hollywood we wanted to take a picture of the sign and get a couple of souvenirs.
To get to the viewing point for the sign was CRAZY. It was a very twisty road and it was full of dumb people walking in the street, then when we reached the top, there was next to no parking. I thought we would be a lot closer to the sign for a picture, but it was really small from where we were.
Once back on Hollywood Blvd we learned how to use a parking meter. Luckily the first shop we stopped it was going out of business and they were the cheapest souvenires ever!
Totally not my picture
HOME
I quick breakfast stop (the hotel breakfast was awful) and we were on the road. The was home we took a different route and drove through the Red Rock National Park, and it was absolutely beautiful
The very last stop we made was at the Topaz Lodge Resort and Casino, it was around dinner time and we were both ready to get out of the car and eat. If you ever are driving through Topaz I recommend the cafe' in the Casino. The food is decent but the view is AMAZING!
Once I got home all I did was pass out! I was so exhausted from trip!
My Recap
I had so much fun on this trip, but I can honestly say Hollywood is not what I expected. I thought it would be glamourous, full of lights and excitement, but it was really just kind of dirty and gross.
Basically Hollywood is Las Vegas's younger brother who has always wanted to be Las Vegas but can't measure up. So he starts cutting himself and doing drugs.