Petersen Automotive Museum and Beverly Hills

On Friday night I picked up a friend, Gregor Gillespie (Gregor Gee) from LAX as he had just flown in from Scotland.  I drove him to his hotel in Hollwood, The Hollywood Hotel, and then we got a late night bite to eat at an IHOP on Sunset Blvd.

Today I picked him up and brought him to my apartment where I had bikes for both of us to ride, and he said he wanted to see the Peterson Automotive Museum on Fairfax/Wilshire, so off we went.

There is a Johnny Rockets attached to the museum.  I'll get back to them in a moment.  Anyhow, we chained the bikes to the ramp railing that lead to the front door and walked in and started to look around.  We had gotten most of the way through the first floor exhibits when the staff discovered we did not have identifying wrist bands, and we were promptly shown back to the front.  When we got back to the front, I discovered there was an admission fee... uh... yeah, great security there!!!!  Anyhow, we decided to go into Johnny Rockets and get something cool to drink as well as a snack.  It was when Gregor got the receipt that the stub said that eating at JR got you a 2/1 price for Petersen.  So then we went back to the front and got properly wrist banded.  The first floor of cars was nice, but the second floor, particularly the famous movie cars...well, Gregor fell down to his knees and practically worshipped when he saw the Greased Lightning vehicle from "Grease."  My delight was seeing the Hannibal B from "The Great Race."

Then too there was the Batmobile, or one of it's incarnations:

Gregor just happens to own the only street legal Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, GEN22, in Europe.  His car is a MGM authorized replica, and it is an exact twin to the original movie car, GEN11.  So part of his mission there was to see if he might peak their interest in purchasing the car should he decide to sell it in a few years.  He got some paperwork to take home.

After our time in Petersen, we decided to head west on Wilshire into Beverly Hills where Gregor wanted to visit Julian's Auctions, a place he had purchased some celebrity memorabilia from.  They were closed, but we sat in the courtyard and had some liquid refreshment.

The view from Julian's Auctions courtyard.

The big red sculpture in the courtyard.

The flower beds on that border the courtyard of Julian's Auctions.

When we started to leave I discovered... groan...that I had my first flat tire on the bike... and not because I ran over glass or anything. I have Bontrager hardcase tires plus extra thick tubes - all only 10 days on my bike. NEVER had a flat with the ordinary tires and tubes in 4 years. The issue was that the tube hadn't been installed properly at the shop (they changed out everything for me. I had been hearing a little squeaking noise that i couldn't pinpoint, and it hadn't been there before the tire/tube change out. Of course, I had all the tools and a spare and air pump with me, so changed the tube and discovered the problem - the extra thick tube's valve stem had torn away from the tube due to improper installation. So... on the way back to my apartment we stopped at the bike shop, and my fav mechanic immediately changed out my spare tube and put in a brand new thick tube. Woot woot! BTW, no more tweaky squeaky noise!

We rode about 9 miles total.