Day 23 - San Diego Seaworld and party on the beach, Distance Travelled - 24 miles Time for Merlin to be awoken from the vast hotel carpark, roof down and a quick blast along the coast 12 miles to Seaworld San Diego. We parked up and once again upgraded our California City Passes to front of the line access. Despite being a Saturday, the park was reasonably quiet and we covered quite a bit. The Atlantis ride was very impressive including both water ride and rollercoaster in one, but couldn't tempt Shassy to take her feet off the ground. All the usual exhibits were there that you'd expect including Dolphin and Sealion interaction, ray feeding, sea otters etc. We also spent a lot of time in the wild artic experience watching the beautiful white Beluga whales ... read more

Day 21 - Chillin by the pool at 'The Del', Distance travelled - 200 yards from the room to the sunbeds to the bar and back! So let the chilling out begin, no driving, no sightseeing, no campsites, no weird goat walking, no super heroes just 6 days doing naff all by the seaside. After our usual lazy breakfast of coffe and pastries from Starbucks, Shas headed straight for her sunbed and I went for a short walk around the grounds to see the hotels collection of birds of prey who were all sitting out on their perches on the lawn. Although they were not quite as impressive as Kayla the eagle from Selhurst Park, they did have a particularly evil looking Egyptian Vulture! They don't let these birds fly around the hotel, probably for fear ... read more

Day 18 - Hotel to Universal studios, Distance Travelled - 5 miles! So after a night "main lining" cold and flu remedy purchased from the petrol station over the road I awoke from a comatose state well after the alarms said I should have. Sharan had given up lighting fireworks up my nostrils and setting fire to the bedclothes in a bid to wake me up and had set off in search of a local Starbucks. Whatever I took seemed to work, even if it had knocked me out for 14 hours as I was ready to hit good old, weird old L.A. Once again. Today's destination was Universal studios just for the afternoon as it closed at 6 p.m. Only 2.5 miles in Merlin the Mustang (ooops still no picture!) so we were there in ... read more

Day 16 - Carpinteria to Hollywood, Distance travelled 108 miles (RV) and 16 miles (Mustang convertible) Was considering knocking the blog on the head now the RV trip is over but after 6 hours in LA there is just too much good material not to carry on writing! But first some RV trip stats for those thinking about it..... - 13 days, 12 nights - 6 Campsites used - 1442 miles covered, - Longest drive in 1 day about 300 miles, took 8.5 hours - 830 dollars on petrol! (183 gallons) - 8 mpg! (4.5 litre engine that took a hammering !) - Be glad it's not Uk petrol prices! So we were awoken this morning about an hour before the alarms firstly at 6-30 as the texts of Crystal Palace's glorious comeback win over Cardiff ... read more

Day 14 a Monterey to KOA Avila/Pismo beach, Distance Travelled - 169 miles Ah well a day that promised so much, certainly delivered but not quite in the way we were expecting. A 7am alarm call was required so we could de-camp, detach and depart the lovely Marina Dunes RV park and head the short 11 miles down US1 into Monterey Marina to pick up our whale watching trip. First surprise of the day was that Monterey marina was already buzzing with people and coaches at 8-15 in the morning but that was because the Celebrity Milenium cruise ship had arrived outside the harbour and was unloading its rag tag, fugitive fleet of travellers onto the docks via tender. The Monterey Bay whale watching leaves from the end of the pier in the Marina, and whilst ... read more