Not all who wander are lost.: Tour guide in a city I only moderately know

My first visitors from Ohio - Sarah, Kate and Kyle H.

Let's be honest. I've only been here two months. So when I'm expected to play tour guide in a city I am only moderately familiar with, I feel a little intimidated. I want to show my friends an out-of-this-world time in sunny southern California.

As a good Los Angeles tour guide, of course you have to take first-time visitors to see Hollywood. To be completely fair, I think it is one of the weakest, despite being the most-recognizable, LA tourist attraction. Aside from some stars and handprints on a sidewalk and a smoggy picture of a distant sign that reads, "Hollywood," there isn't really anything there.

You think Hollywood is glamorous, but it is actually rather dirty and not really kept up. Right in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater, of course, everything looks great. As you go a block either way though, the sidewalk is chipped, stars are damaged, and it is a little sketch. Half of one star was even missing. Can you imagine the fans and family of that celeb coming to take a picture and discovering half the star gone?

My favorite part of that tourist trap is the fountain in the middle of the mall there. I don't know why. Maybe it is the elephants on the pillars in the square. Maybe it is because I'm always tempted to run through it. Maybe I just really like fountains.

Of course, Kate, Sarah, Kyle H. and I took pics with the stars hand and foot prints. The better pictures, however, I think took place at the Hollywood sign viewpoint. If you take a photo with just your camera, it is going to be really far away (no matter how many megapixels your camera sports or how far your zoom is). So we decided to pay the quarter for the telescopic viewer to get a better look. Well one quarter eventually turned into a couple quarters.

And it only took two - sometimes three - sets of hands to get a pic. Not a bad shot though:

We complemented our trip to Hollywood with a visit to the Santa Monica Pier and of course, an O-H-I-O shot!

I've never seen the TV show, The O.C., but Sarah's a fan, so I took the group to Newport Beach.

I think she may have been a little disappointed that no one told us, Welcome to the O.C., bitch.

After lunch at the restaurant at the end of the Newport Beach pier, we headed down to the beach. Kate taught us how to frolic in the sand, and then we decided to dip our toes in the Pacific. I think Sarah's expression below can best demonstrate how cold the ocean on the West Coast is.

We meandered over to Little Corona Del Mar. Tucked behind a mostly residential area, it is definitely one of the most scenic beaches I've seen out here with the waves crashing into the rocks. Read about it on yelp and would highly recommend.

There are so many sights to see around LA. Nevertheless, I love taking visitors to my backyard - the Hermosa Beach pier. Just a short walk up the strand - or a short frolic down the beach, whatever mood strikes you.

At the foot of the pier is Hennessey's. Admittedly my new favorite watering hole and restaurant for their Cajun chicken, famous homemade lemonade, and their outdoor, upstairs deck that overlooks the ocean.