Mike Hulsebus Photography: Southern California



Laguna Beach expensive houses private southern california orange county

In traveling to California to shoot the wedding, I had some free time to go check out the surrounding area. The day I flew in, I stopped by Laguna Beach before a meeting later that day.


Laguna Beach cliffs private southern california orange county


Laguna Beach cliffs private southern california orange county


Laguna Beach cliffs private southern california orange county


The next day, the plan was to hang out with L.A. residents Matt and Casey, but Casey had to work from 5am to 11pm on The Singing Bee, so it was just me and Matt. Matt was kind enough to give me his tour of the area.


Hollywood photography silhouette

Welcome to Hollywood.


James Jimmy Stewart Star Walk of Fame Hollywood


Capitol Records Building Capital


Graffiti scowl black and white elephant

The Roosevelt Hotel

The Roosevelt Hotel (more info on Wikipedia).



Mel's Diner Drive-in american graffiti sign neon

We ate at Mel's Drive-In where they shot American Graffiti.


Lucille Ball

Before we walked around, Matt told me that there were a lot of places that sold stripper clothes. I figured he was exagerating for humor's sake, but there are really a lot of places that sell some pretty ridiculous clothes. Not underwear stores. Not skanky clothing stores. These are places that sell clothing like nowhere else. Here we see Lucille Ball's star on the walk of fame in front of a clothing/underwear/"exotic shoe" store.


John Wayne Airport Southwest Airlines.

On the flight to Denver, I was fortunate enough to get a window seat. And by "fortunate enough" I mean that I got to the airport early to change my seat.


Newport beach from above birds-eye view

Goodbye Newport Beach. Goodbye California.



We made a brief detour over the surface of Mars.



The site of a future housing development


The Denver parking lot.


These things are pretty much one of the best air travel inventions in some time. As the plane flies, this constantly updates to show the plane's current heading, altitute, position, and speed. Here we are taxing on the Denver runway.


I didn't have a window seat for the way back to the Detroit airport, but our blue skies didn't last for long. We had to get around a storm by going until we were almost in South Dakota. Still, we only added a 30 minutes or so to our flight time. And as a result, we got to go through some turbulence (fun for me), got to see lightning from above, and got free Direct TV (which I used to watch Dirty Jobs).


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