Home James

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Well today was our last day on US soil.

Took the promised City tour of LA, and while we got some nice shots, it was more a case of filling in time than an enlightening experience. To make matters worse, our driver guide (named Wolf for Wolfgang I suspect) was so obscure with his English language that he was barely understandable at least 50% of the time – and not at all for the balance.

At the end of the trip he stood at the front of the bus and virtually insisted that he receive a minimum 15% gratuity.

You can imagine how well he did with that with your correspondent. In fairness, to ensure that IO wasn’t being too tough, I checked with the Chancellor of the exchequer, and she signed off on the NIL tip concept. Anyway, we did the LA things – from Venice Beach to Sunset strip – to Rodeo Drive and Melrose – as well as oh well you get the message.

The biggest disappointment was that at Grueman’s Chinese theatre, we couldn’t go in and check out the foot/hand prints as they were about to shoot an ad of some sort – and had it blocked off with heavies to boot.

We did get to go along Hollywood Blvd and the walk of Fame – and pleasingly Chris managed to find Harrison Ford – so the world as we know it had been restored.

The everlasting memory of LA is Traffic – and we were assured by our driver that there are 10 million cars here. That is crazy stuff – and they deserve all they get in my humble view.

Not least because by any definition, at least half of them are trucks.

On the way back to our airport hotel, we passed (still in the city limits), copious oil wells still trundling away pumping out oil. Those that have been closed off have so polluted the surrounding land so much that it is (at least for the medium term), unusable – and has been converted to ‘Parkland’.

With an election upcoming next week, I need to sign off now as I am in danger of being forced to vote green!!!!!

Anyway, some pics for you.

And thats it for this litle adventure. We have had a wonderful time and after 5 weeks away are somewhat looking forward to getting back to some form of normality.

This is a country with some magnificent natural beauty. Enough said!

Until the next trip ......

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