City of Industry & Whittier

I started my last day by venturing out to an area called City of Industry where I visited the Puente Hills Mall. The parking lot of the mall was used for the scene in Back to the Future where we see the DeLorean for the first time, and where it time-travels for the first time as well. Inside the mall, they also have a reproduction of the Twin Pines Mall sign that was used in the movie.

The actual mall seems to be going out of business. It only has a few stores left that are still operating and it was mostly deserted. No people there at all. It was cool to see another lovation from the movie though.

I then continued my Back to the Future trek by going to Whittier High School, which is the school used in the movie - both for the 1955 scenes and the 1985 ones. Since it still operates as a school, it's not a place that outsiders can usually visit. Today, however, they had a special alumni event - mostly designed for former students, but I was able to join as well.

The event started with a light lunch and then an hour-long tour of the school. I saw basically all the areas of the school that they used in the movie, so that was really cool.

The event concluded with a Wurlitzer Organ performance - a very impressive instrument with over 2,000 pipes. The pianist played some classic Disney movie themes, and then they screened a silent film with the pianist playing along to it Very unique experience.

It was great to see another Back to the Future location to close out my trip.

Next week is 'Back to the Future' day and in connection with the 40th anniversary, there's a lot of activities related to the movie. One company is offering a 6-day fan event that visits all the locations, among many other things. I'm sad I can't join it since I'm flying home today, but I'm glad I was able to see some of the locations on my own. I also picked up a copy of the new book by Michael J. Fox which came out just a couple of days ago.

Now, it's time to get ready for the long flight back to Copenhagen!Read more