Back from LA

All back from Los Angeles from my weekend layover. We were blessed by some great weather with record high temps too. It was quite warm while we were there, which was great!

The flight in was very very busy. It was likely the busiest airspace I've ever flown into. Trying to negotiate the busy coridors in took a lot of concentration and diligence. At one point, a rouge aircraft somehow ended up in the airspace and caused a couple minutes of tension as we had to make a couple of maneuvers to assure he wouldn't get too close. We lined up on 1 or the 3 parallel runways that were active that night and we had airplanes all around us on the approach to landing. It was pretty intense.

After we got on the ground we were held up as customs took almost 1 full hour to show up! We sat waiting and waiting and waiting on the airplane. When they finally arrived they apologized and cleared us very quickly, then they let it slip that the reason we were held up was because they had to take some extra time clearing Avril Lavigne at the next building over on her private jet.

We stayed at the Sheraton right at the airport and my room had a good view of one of the runways, I enjoyed the view. No free internet though, so I was able to steal a very weak signal a couple of times to check emails and schedules.

The next day we went for a walk around the hotel and airport and had some great views of all the big aircraft coming into land. We were mesmerized by all of the international activity at this massive airport.

Saturday was our day for exploring and we decided we try and take the bus down to Hollywood and check out some of the touristy stuff. So I looked up online which buses to take (as we'd have to take transfers). Well, this kind of worked. First off we missed our very first bus 3 times! Haha, we finally got on the bus and then missed our transfer drop off, so after talking with the bus driver we just stayed on the bus until downtown LA, and we would then transfer over to a subway and take that straight to Hollywood. Well, as we got closer and closer to downtown we realized we were in some rather sketchy areas of town. Myself and the other pilot (Mike) stood out quite obviously as 'not from around these parts'.

We got onto the subway and then missed a transfer there too, then when finally on the right subway we got off one stop too early and had to walk quite a distance into Hollywood. We finally got there and walked the "walk of fame" up and down Hollywood Blvd, checked out all the Hollywood Stars, and also the hand and foot prints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. They were also starting to set up for the Oscars at the Kodak Theater, so that was pretty cool to see. That Kodak Theater is quite the venue! We toured around a bit more, saw the Hollywood sign, took some pictures and then it was time to head it back.

The sun was just starting to set as we got onto another bus to take us back towards the hotel. Once again, we missed our transfer! This time we were in some very sketch areas of town, it was dark out, with some interesting individuals walking around the streets. We finally got back to the area where we could take a bus back towards our hotel and we finally arrived back to the Sheraton in one piece.

That night we ate at the hotel restaurant which had a very tasty burger which was named "best burger in LA 2005". The next morning it was up early and off to the airport for our return to Calgary. A fairly uneventful flight home to a windy Calgary which did cause some good turbulence on the way in.

Here's a photo album (164 pics) which has some shots from my hotel view, trip to hollywood, and some shots from the airport before we departed (and on the departure) from LAX. Oh, and the shots with me and the Donald P Bellasario star are in reference to an episode of JAG which had one of the characters mocking the producer of the show, haha, kind of an inside joke.

click on Hollywood sign to view picture album