Things are starting to wind down a bit. I’m pretty much done with strolling around the cemeteries in LA. There is still plenty of cemeteries I’d really like to check out in the LA area. But to be honest I think those cemeteries will have to wait until my next visit. So not to put a damper on things. Let me bring you all up to speed on what I’ve done the last three days.

On Monday, Memorial Day I went to the infamous Glendale location of the Forest Lawn conglomeration of cemeteries. I gotta tell you as much as I wanted to go frolicking around the grounds, I didn’t have much time to do so being that I was invited to tag along on my friend Scott Michaels Dearly Departed Tour in which he was giving later in the day. While I was at Forest Lawn Glendale, I met up with my friend David, and ran into yet another fan of mine & fellow Hollywood-Underground member the lovely Debra. Much like the other people who I’ve run into during my visit, she recognized me by my trademark floppy hat, and designer classes.

While I was at Forest Lawn Glendale, I didn’t have time to see much being that I had to be at the pickup location for Scott’s tour. What I did see were parts of the Great Mausoleum. Now keep in mind taking photos in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn, is absolutely OFF-LIMITS. I had my camera on me but was advised by another friend who will remain anonymous, that I shouldn’t take any photos while inside the mausoleum. I will say this I was one of a few people to actually see Michael Jackson’s sarcophagus inside the mausoleum. So that pretty much sums up Forest Lawn Glendale.

After leaving Forest Lawn, I went down to Hollywood, so I could take tour I was invited to go on. If you remember, the other day I mentioned that Scott Michaels was the proprietor of Dearly Departed Tours. The tour is a unique approach to your typical Hollywood sightseeing tour. The tour consists of visiting the sites of Hollywood murder, and some sort of unforeseen scandal site. If your going to be in Hollywood anytime soon, and want to take a tour that is not your typical Hollywood sightseeing venue. I HIGHLY recommend taking a spin around Hollywood in one of Scott’s chauffeur driven air-conditioned van coaches to visit the sites of murder, mayhem, and scandal. Oh and before I forget here is the official site for Dearly Departed Tours.

On Day seven of my LA gravecation, I checked out the Forest Lawn location in the Hollywood Hills. This day was a really fun day. Joining me at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, was once again Scott Michaels, and Lisa Burks. It was like a match made in macabre heaven. The thing is what many of you don’t know is that like my self Scott, and Lisa are originally from Detroit but now reside in the Los Angeles area. So you can only imagine three people who at one time or another lived in Detroit, but were now strolling around Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills oh the humanity. If your interested my good friend Lisa has a blog, feel free to check it out.

So let’s get back on track. While I was at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills with the help of Scott, and Lisa I found a ton of gravesites. Some of the celebrity gravesites I found included metal god Ronnie James Dio, who passed away a little over a year ago from complications of cancer. Other gravesites I found included Tamara DeTreaux she was a little person who was the character E.T. in the film E.T. I also found the gravesite of Bette Davis, Liberace, Rod Steiger, George Raft, Freddie Prinze, Stan Laurel, Lou Rawls, Buster Keaton, and a bunch of others.

After I got done at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, I decided to look for a cigar shop. With no such luck, I decided to go with plan B and check out Galco’s Soda Pop Stop store. This place has an insane amount of soda. Before I came to LA I planned to check out Galco’s and pump some dough into the local economy. So I ended up buying six different bottles of soda I’ve never heard of. If you come to LA you gotta check this place out its unreal. After buying some soda, I headed back to Anaheim.

Today being day eight, I decided to check out some cemeteries in Orange County, CA. Let me just mention that there isn’t an insane amount of celebrity gravesites to be seen. But Orange county does have a decent contingent of celeb gravesites. Joining me for some Orange County grave hunting, was my friend Terry, a few of the celebs worth mentioning who we found at the Forest Lawn Cypress location were old gravesite of musician & singer Karen Carpenter, along with Angel Florez who was a Mickey Mouse Club alumnus who passed away from complications of HIV/AIDS.  Another person Terry, and I found at Forest Lawn Cypress was Eddie Cochran who was killed in a car accident while traveling the countryside in England.

Moving along we checked out Westminster cemetery. By far the most well-known celebrity at Westminster who we found was Brad Nowell who was the lead singer of the ska/punk band Sublime. He passed away after overdosing on heroin.  All in all I had a great few days. Stay tuned in the coming days as I’ll be visiting a few more cemeteries in Orange County, and then wrapping up my gravecation. I’m planning on visiting Pacific View cemetery either tomorrow or Friday. The most famous person at Pacific View is John Wayne, there are some other celebs buried there as well so stay turned.