Yes, I survived Swine Flu in time to take a big, gay bus tour!

Yes, this weekend I kissed my husband and kids goodbye to go on a long awaited date with the one and only, fabulous Prince Gomolvilas on a one of a kind bus tour from Out & About Tours.

It was a unique tour of Los Angeles’ LGBT history from the upper tier of a double-decker bus.

Cruising East down Santa Monica Boulevard you are introduced to Barney’s Beanery (where my husband and I had our first date, unfortunately. I guess there was some pretty ugly ju-ju there.) where there used to hang a sign that said “Fagots- Stay Out.” This outed them as not only small and hateful, but also grammatically challenged.

Later as we approached a certain corner in Hollywood, Prince and I were elected to act out a scene based on when Eddie Murphy infamously picked up his late-night transsexual companion Atisone Seuli. I'll let you ponder who played who in the scene but I will say, it was an Oscar worthy moment, to say the least.

As it turns out, Out & About Tours is the first and only gay bus tour that provides an educational yet always entertaining look at LGBT history in and around Los Angeles. T

he tour is open to members of any and all communities 21 years of age and older; be it a straight local or gay tourist, everyone will get something special and memorable from Out & About Tours. With more than 100 points of interest, the tour mixes campy entertainment with heart-breaking personal stories of struggle and failure. In creating Out & About Tours, founder Jim Anzide aimed to combine entertainment with education and drive the message home by playing to audiences’ emotions.

I didn't feel silly at all to not know as much about gay history as we started the tour, since the lovely and animated tour guides were quick to prompt us with signs that said "Cheers!" or "Jeers!" and taught us a few handy gestures that we employed throughout the trip a la Rocky Horror Picture Show.

As I mentioned earlier, the tour guides were a lively and entertaining crew who peppered the trip with colorful scenes and monologues throughout the trip and were not hard on the eyes at all.

We learned plenty of gossip, gossip, gossip as well as many moving tales of struggle and triumph as the gay and lesbian community fought for civil rights throughout the years.

There were plenty of sorrowful tales of thos who were persecuted for being gay or lesbian which made me very sad, to say the least. I had no idea the Los Angeles Police Department were so brutal for so many years. Or that men and women could be arrested for not dressing in a lady-like fashion.

So, this means that if you didn't wear a dress like Betty Draper you might get hauled down to the police station for it and harassed for not appearing feminine. This means we've come a long way, baby. Just not quite far enough.

There was never a dull moment as we cruised high up in our very jaunty big red bus all the way to Silverlake and then downtown Los Angeles. We passed through historic Olivera Street where we learned that the first settlers in this area were Native Americans who historically had always given those who were "different" an honorable place in their community. In fact, they even had a ceremony in tribe members teen years celebrating their choice of identification should they desire.

Which I thought this was a very handy thing to know what with Thanksgiving just around the corner.

As I said, we passed all through the city all and we even stopped for cocktails at a wonderfully dark and swishy piano bar called "The Other Side." Here we could redeem our pink tickets for a lovely cocktail, or two and even belt out a tune or two at the piano.

If only I'd known we were going to sing so I could have brushed up a few show tunes for the trip! Prince was right; one should never be without a memorized song or two!

On the way back we travelled up and past the famously seedy "Hollywood and Vine" and took in a view of some entertaining riff-raff there before heading back home to the beginning of the tour.

Later, after the bus ride ended Prince and I chatted about our wonderful tour for The Bilerico Project which you can read about here.

After our lovely day, we also strolled around the corner to a wonderful local restaurant called Tender Greens, located at 8759 Santa Monica Blvd. to decompress and relax over lovingly prepared local produce.