A night of decent sleep afterwards, it was time to experience a bit of Los Angeles in the time we had available. Unfortunately, much of the time before starting a hike (especially overseas) involves grocery shopping and mail drops. There was a Wal-Mart near the hotel for us to get all the food shopping done and there was a US postal office right next to the hotel so we had everything we needed close by.

Unfortunately, one of the mail drops on the JMT requires mail to be put into a bucket which must then be sent by UPS to the destination – Muir Trail Ranch. This is understandable given the remoteness of the destination and the fact that all mail must be brought in across Florence Lake and then by mule to the Ranch. It is great Muir Trail Ranch do this because otherwise the second half of the JMT would be problematic.

Grocery shopping at Walmart

That’s a lot of Tortilla wraps

After the hard work was over and we had mailed our resupplies, it was time for some fun and we headed up to Dodger Stadium to see the LA Dodgers in action. It was a beautiful day and a great game. We really enjoyed seeing the game and, of course, had to buy the obligatory Dodgers cap.  I was also recommended to try the Dodger Dog – can’t say I was that impressed but for those of you who are interested, it’s below in all its glory. As well as the game, we enjoyed hearing one of the locals shout ‘LET’S GO DODGERS!’ at the top of his voice. Fortunately, by the sixth innings he had more or less lost his voice but still kept trying!

Dodger Stadium

The game – the Dodgers won!

The infamous Dodger Dog

The next day we had no hiking related tasks to do, so we decided to head across to Universal Studios. It was a beautiful Southern Californian day again with lots of sunshine and we made the most of it. The queues were of course huge but we made the most of the single rider queue to hit the Transformers ride up four times in a row!

The Universal Studios entrance

The entrance sign

You mean you don’t remember me in Apollo 13?