Last week I detailed my first two days of my recent California Labor Day adventure, where I got to spend a few busy days visiting my brother on the West Coast.  If you missed Part One, I suggest you go take a look.  Things will make a little more sense as we dive into the back half of my ‘So Cal’ travels.  Let’s get going, shall we?

Day 3

I awoke early again (still on East Coast time), and got ready for a day of interesting, obscure, and off-beat sightseeing.  My brother was going to meet up with an acquaintance from the mid-west who was on the coast to pursue his passion – taking pictures of actual filming locations from various TV shows and movies.  Now, my brother also does this from time to time, and there is a whole subculture of people who follow this type of adventuring.  Like geocaching or treasure hunting, the thrill is in the chase, and armed with stills from various movies and TV shows, we loaded up the car and headed out across the San Fernando Valley in search of set locations.

We found the hillside house from “Lethal Weapon 2”, the houses from “Mr.Mom”, “Golden Girls”, “Empty Nest”, the police station from “Beverly Hills Cop”, various locations from the “Brady Bunch”, “Grease”, and many, many others.  Our new friend also had a keen interest in anything and everything to do with the TV shows “Gilmore Girls” and “Southland”.  It’s important to these types of set location hunters that they get not only the actual location, but also duplicate the exact camera angle and background in their pictures.  Needless to say, it was a long day, as we were down to comparing brick patterns in the sidewalk at the campus of UCLA in 100+ degree heat to find exact matches.

Peppered into all of this location madness was a stop at the Fox Studio Lot, where my brother not only works, but is also home to a LOT of Hollywood history.  Right inside the gate is the street where Walter Matthau and Barbara Streisand musically marched down in the classic film, “Hello Dolly”.  We passed by sound stages that housed such classic films as “The Seven Year Itch”, “The Sound of Music”, and Sound Stage 15, which housed the film “Fight Club” (but we don’t talk about Fight Club).  We saw the bungalows that Shirley Temple used to call home, passed massive murals of such classic films as “Young Frankenstein”, “Star Wars”, and animated hits like “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy”.  Above it all, looming in the background, was perhaps the most recognizable skyscraper of all – the Fox Plaza building, which keen observers will instantly recognize as the ‘Nakatomi’ building from the film “Die Hard”.  Very cool.

It was pizza and wings for the Snyder boys as we retreated from the heat back to my brother’s apartment for an evening of college football viewing and catch-up conversation.  My body gave out at around 8:30 PM, the time difference finally catching up with me.  I’d need the rest, too – as tomorrow was slated to be our busiest day of all.

Day 4

An early wake-up call as we picked up my niece and headed south to Anaheim for a day at Disneyland!  It had been over 17 years since I had ventured this way (back in the days when I worked for the mouse), and there have been many changes and updates since my last visit.  With my niece as our guide, we hit all of the major attractions and enjoyed all of the festive fall décor.  The “Haunted Mansion” had its “Nightmare Before Christmas” holiday overlay (fantastic).  We hit up “Big Thunder Mountain” and then headed back into the new Star Wars land (“Galaxy’s Edge”), where my inner ten year-old self came out in full force, marveling at the atmosphere, giggling at the R2-D2 droid that beeped at me, and enjoying the jaw-dropping attractions “Rise of the Resistance”, and “Millenium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run”, where I got to fulfill a lifelong dream of actually piloting Han Solo’s iconic spaceship.

Again, I can’t stress enough the joy in hanging out with people who know how to navigate any area you’re visiting.  We deftly moved from attraction to attraction, never waiting more than 30 minutes in a park that was full of Labor Day visitors.  In the afternoon, we moved over into Disney’s California Adventure, hitting up rides themed to Disney/Pixar movies such as “The Incredibles”, “Cars”, and “The Little Mermaid”.  We snagged a good viewing area for the nighttime show at one park, then whisked our way back over to Disneyland to catch their nighttime show before ending our day with a quick cruise on “Pirates of the Caribbean”.  Sixteen hours and fourteen miles worth of steps later, it was time to call it a day, but not before we made one last 1:00 AM stop at In-N-Out for a final burger and fries on the way back to Los Angeles.  I mean come on – we just had to.

The next morning, I said my goodbyes and waited groggily at the Hollywood Burbank airport for my cross-country flight back east, looking forward to an in-flight nap and full of memories from a fun-filled trip.

How was your Labor Day weekend?