Travel Day, Day in LA, Part 1, Police Academy and Cemetery 6-4

It was crazy windy all night at the Pyramid Lake RV about 5 miles south of Gorman so I didn’t sleep to well. We hit the road about 9 and it was bad windy until we hit the bottom of the Grapevine. We enjoyed traveling up 99 versus 5…a fraction of the truck traffic and the roadway was pretty smooth…not nearly as torn up. The oleanders and large eucalyptus trees made it pretty in spots.

We made pretty good time, traveled almost 200 miles in 4ish hours. We are just west of Coarsegold on highway 41 between Fresno and Oakhurst…not too far from Yosemite. Maybe after living all our lives in California we will finally see Yosemite. Our favorite BBQ place is in Oakhurst so we’ll definitely be visiting there! Here is where we'll be for a week or three, a lovely hilltop space.

Wednesday was such a full day I decided to break it up for the blog. It takes so much time to write, choose and edit the pictures and then the Blogger site can be a pain in the butt when it comes to arranging the placement of pictures and spacing of the paragraphs and with all the pictures we took breaking it up will just make it easier.

Cliff picked us up in his official Secret Squirrel car and off we went to LA. We first went to the Police Academy, then to the cemetery, to the Police Museum, to the Hollywood Station, then Captain Grimala took us to lunch at Paramount Studios where we hooked up with their head investigator who lunched with us and then gave us a private tour of the lot. After that it was back to the station where we hooked up with an officer who drove us up the hill to the Hollywood sign and then it was off to ASD for our helicopter ride along. It was a full exciting day.

So we begin with the Police Academy that is historic and quite beautiful. My Dad's Academy class picture had been taken in front of this building. Cliff took us up the stairs behind the lounge and dining center, there was a large oasis back there with a waterfall where they have lovely parties.

Cliff, our wonderful friend and escort stopped as we hit the landing and seemed to be waiting….for the huge explosion of gunfire that had me jumping out of my skin…we were right next to the firing range. As I am writing this for public eyes I won’t repeat my French. Larry and Cliff thought it was funny…BOYS! It was an amazing place. There was a memorial and right at the top was a brick with Dad’s name on it.

Then we went to Forest Lawn, which is a huge, old beautiful cemetery in Glendale where my Dad is buried between his Dad, Dr. William Campbell and Mom, my Grandma Chrissie. Such incredible views from the “Campbell” plot. Cliff thoughtfully brought a few flags to place at Dad’s headstone. My Granfather had died in North Dakota of colon cancer and he and my Grandmother had planned where she would go and start over. I guess there were more opportunities for a single Mother in L.A. than in Valley City, North Dakota. They bought the three plots then and my Grandmother buried her husband there and later her son. Grandma followed long after.

My Dad's funeral was the largest LAPD had up until that time. There were over 300 officers from various agencies in attendance. A friend of my Dad's who was a fellow piper came over the hill playing the bagpipes, solo and so began the tradition of bagpipes being played at all officer killed in the line of duty LAPD funerals.