Advertisement
We landed in LAX at 2pm on the 2nd May having left Fiji at 10pm on the 2nd May! It required all of my powers to convince Amy that it was just a regular plane rather than a fancy time travelling machine!
Our hotel was in Downtown LA. It was called the Ritz, but unfortunately it was not the Ritz Carlton but the Ritz Milner. That said, the room was small but cosy and it had a TV and a hot shower!
We only had 15 days in America and had sorted out a hire car for 10. We only spent 1 whole day in LA and we headed straight for Hollywood to see the Sign and the Walk of Fame. We bought a stack of phone cards and began to try calling home. 15 phones later we finally had made contact with the family to let them know our really exciting news! It will be such a pleasure to get home and know at home you can access the internet, send texts and even make phone calls from pay phones at home!
We headed back to the hotel and crashed out in the hotel for the
rest of the evening. We dined on double subway (lunch and dinner) where we were introduced to America s love of 42oz drinks which have free refills!
We were awakened, for the second morning in a row, by the screams of the homeless guy outside. On the first morning we were almost positive he was being murdered! We would both choose a rooster any day of the week.
We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel and wandered around to Avis to pick up our car. The experience was so different from renting our campers in
OZ and NZ. The guy had us fill in the paper work and handed us the keys. There was no lecture or vehicle check for any scratches or dents.
I gingerly edged out of the car park and doing my best to remember which side of the road I was supposed to be sticking to. We made it on to the highway towards Malibu beach with the intention to check out the bodies on Venice Beach. As we got closer it turned out that we would not only have to make it off the motorway but also make it back
on. This all sounds very simple but due to the crazy road layouts getting back on would have us heading back into downtown LA. As a result we ditched the Venice beach idea and headed towards the Baywatch area. We were hoping to see some glitz and glamour and possibly Miss Anderson. Unfortunately, despite the sun shining the place looked a right dump with the highway running along side the beach - lovely!
Everybody had said that we must head up the coast along route 1 towards Santa Barbara and Big Sur. We decided to follow this route. We still had all our camping gear with us, and we decided to camp along the way. The first night was a Friday, and we were lucky to get a campsite, as we were not that far from LA, and the forecast was for a good weekend.
In Oz and NZ, we were not allowed any camp fires, or barbeques due to fire risk. In California we were able to have fires within the fire rings, which kept us toasty during the evening, but did mean that all our clothes stunk of wood smoke!
With another couple of stops
along the way, and a good amount of sunbathing, we headed up to the section of the road that is said by all to be stunning. We had seen a lot of good coastal views whilst we were in OZ and NZ, and found ourselves under whelmed with what we were seeing. We had a good campsite for the night in a forest, where we were able to catch the last of the sun s rays before sunset, and also got the first of the morning sun. We had our first 24oz cans of beer - the cans were as big as our heads!
We still had a few days remaining with the car, so we decided to go across country, heading for Kings Canyon and the Sequoia National Parks. We stopped en route at a reservoir for a night. That day the temperature topped 98F. At the campsite there were lockers at each site. We asked the camp host if we had to use them, knowing that we were not into bear country yet. He replied by saying that we didn t need to worry about bears, but we should look out for Mountain Lions - great! He tried to
reassure us that tarantulas are not a problem for another month or two, which just gave us more cause to worry. Later in the evening he wandered back saying that he had just seen a rattler and that we should be careful, and bid us a good night. After all that information I am not sure how he expected us to sleep well!
The next day we entered the King s Canyon National Park, to go and see some big trees. We drove up to a vista point where there were fantastic panoramic views. The trees were massive, and we saw the largest tree by volume in the world! The National Park was at a higher altitude, and the nights were really chilly.
We were now in bear country, and by law we had to put everything that smelt good to bears, in a bear locker. This included all of our food, drink, toiletries, make-up, insect repellent, and candles, because if not in the locker, bears have been known to break into cars to get these items. We both wanted to see a bear, but didn t want to see it breaking into our car!
The following day, we
drove through the adjacent Sequoia National Park. Here we were able to drive through a tree trunk. We also climbed up a big rock, which from the top there were awesome views. As we drove along, we saw a number of cars pulled over. We caught a glimpse of what they were all looking at - a bear! We pulled over and snapped a couple of piccies. It really made our day.
Another couple of days were spent making our way to San Francisco, stopping for a night amongst the giant redwoods. As we approached San Fran it was cloudy, but it was our last day with the car and we were pleased that we had been able to pitch and take the tent down 10 times without it having to deal with a wet tent. We drove into San Fran and headed straight for the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an impressive bridge, but it was a shame that we couldn t see the top of it because of all of the cloud.
We headed towards Union Square to return our car, after dropping our bags off at the hotel. Handing the car back was a doddle as
they had a drive in garage to leave the car in. Despite the staff reminding us on three different occasions not to leave personal items in the car, Rob still managed to leave his sunglasses in the front, and had to run back to rescue them!
We strolled around Union Square, instantly liking the feel of San Fran more so than that of LA. We were both to pleased that we had a nice room for the our last 3 nights so went back to the Travelodge, ordered pizza and had a whole evening watching tv - our first for a considerable length of time!
The second day we just mooched around the centre, but it was really cold and windy, so we just tried to keep inside. On our final full day we went to Alcatraz. Welcome to the Rock , was all I repeatedly heard from Rob. There was an audio tour of the prison which was really good, and you could go inside the cells which were tiny.
Having visited the steepest road in the world in NZ, we felt it was only right that we visited the crookedest street in San Fran. This was
pretty impressive, and any pictures you see don t do it any justice of how weird it is.
On pier 39, a whole group of sealions have taken over. You hear them before you see them, and they entertained us for quite a while. The big male sealions spent the time pushing smaller ones off the pier into the sea! Rob has subsequently looked on Google Earth, and has seen that you can spot them on that.
For our final night we went for a few drinks and dinner. I could only manage a couple of drinks as the cocktails were all served in mammoth glasses! For dinner we went to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurant, of Forest Gump fame. There was loads of memorabilia on display, and we had a sign on our table to adjust if we wanted to get the waiters attention. The sign read Stop, Forest, Stop , for the waiter to come our way, and Run, Forest, Run if we were quite content. They tested our knowledge of the film between courses. We had a trainee come to our table, and Rob quizzed the poor girl back! You can guess who was more knowledgeable!
The morning of our flight, we dumped the majority of our clothes that we have lived in for the past 6 months - the poor cleaning lady! We went for a coffee before going to the airport, and sat down to check our emails. A lady in front of the other computer then started to give us the finger! Rob decided to move in front of her, so we couldn t see what she was doing. Then all we could hear from her was this continuous cackling! We decided that there was not a lot else we really needed to see on the internet, and moved to a table away from her. She later left the coffee shop, but not without banging on the outside of window at us!
We were quite glad to leave San Fran, and its numerous freaks and headed to the safety of the airport. With a complex underground train ticket system, that took us with a couple of degrees between us and English as our first language a little while to fathom!
The airport had little to entertain us, but that didn t matter as we were excited to be going home!! We were ready
to embark on job hunting, house searching, and wedding planning!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.16s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 61; dbt: 0.1019s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Lesley and Eric
non-member comment
Welcome Home and Thank You
Rob and Amy I am so glad that you enjoyed your trip so much. 6 months has passed so quickly. I have to thank you for keeping us updated with your Blog. Your diaries have have been fantastic and made us really laugh at times. The photos, and their titles, are brilliant and we are sure you will have lots of enjoyment looking over them in the future. Welcome home guys, and all the best with the job hunting, house hunting and wedding planning! More adventures for you to look forward to eh! Take care. Love and Best Wishes Lesley and Eric xx