Day 35 - San Diego - Los Angeles

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It was the last day of the Transcontinental South trip so Kylie, Zoe and I rode in the front row together one last time.
After having breakfast at a Waffle House, where we spoilt ourselves on the last of the food kitty, we soon reached Los Angeles, where Todd took us on a quick tour of Beverly Hills, Sunset Boulevard and Bel Air, where we were asked if we knew the famous TV show set here.
Everyone replied ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’, and then someone asked how the theme song went. Then nearly all of us started reciting the lyrics almost perfectly - “Now this is a story, all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down. And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became a Prince of a town called Bel Air”. Admit it, you’re singing along to it now, trying to remember the rest of it!
I then handed my mp3 player to the DJ to play the full version of the song for everyone to sing along to.

Our first stop was Hollywood. In fact Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the start of the Walk of Fame and also the Hollywood sign itself in the distance. This was awesome seeing all the pavement slaps that have famous stars hand or foot prints and signatures on them, and then to find some of the most famous people to have stars on the Walk of Fame. I certainly feel honoured to see all these names below my feet!
And seeing the Hollywood sign was enough for me. That's the only part of LA that interests me, and I've dreamed of being an actor!
Zoe ws only interested in finding one person here – Grace Kelly, and we quickly found his signature slab outside the theatre. We then headed out along Hollywood Boulevard to try and find his star.
I don’t actually know how long the stars go on for, and we only had a short time before Todd had to pick us up, as he couldn't hang around without getting a ticket.
After going 4 or 5 blocks in one direction, we headed back to the Theatre and headed the other way, before crossing the road and heading back down, and as we passed every star I was quickly taking snaps of the names I do recognise. This was really the definition of point and shoot whilst on the move!

I then got a call to say that the others were all waiting for us, as we had overrun by 15 minutes or so. When we finally got back to the van, we got a bit of stick, to which Zoe got a little defensive about, but it soon blew over.
We were now heading to Santa Monica for a look around and dinner. I soon fell asleep, and awoke again 45 minutes later, only to discover we were stuck in heavy traffic and had only made a few miles. We should have already been at Santa Monica, but LA traffic was so bad, we were nowhere near.

When we finally arrived, the 4 of us head off together one last time, taking in the pier first, before heading to the nearby shops and having a look around. There were many shops but nothing of real interest for us, although we did find a Aussie shop that sells both Australian and British products.

We soon headed back to the front of the pier where our restaurant was waiting – Bubba Gump.
After another wonderful dinner, we headed to the Hacienda Gateway hotel to the tunes of Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ and Green Day’s ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).
Becca commented to me that it felt like one of those school leaving disco’s where the same sort of music was always played. I didn’t mind it, as it seemed to bring everyone together one last time as we all sang along.

After parking up, Todd told us that everything had to be taken out of the van and trailer as he would be taking it to the LA branch of Trek for a check up, and also may get a different van or trailer for the second leg. So everything got unloaded, and many of us struggled to gather all our many items together and drag, carry or wheel them through the small parking lot, across the road, and into the hotel lobby.
When we all finally made it and with all our stuff, we lined up to check in, finding out that we had assigned rooms for ‘finishers’ and ‘carry-overs’. Mark and I were in together.
Todd, Jess, Becca, Kylie, Zoe and I later headed to Graham and Neal’s room for a little party, where we all sat around and joke and reminisce about the Tour so far.
No one really said goodbye as we would see each other again tomorrow.

When I got back to my room, a very drunk Mark finally woke up, and after I told him where I had come from, decided to join the rest and just walked out of the room. He didn’t take his door pass so I knew he would have to knock to get back in.
After getting ready for bed, I listened to some music with one earpiece out waiting for Mark’s knock, but over an hour later he still hadn’t returned and I went to bed.

Though the day was the last official day of the Transcontinental South part of the Tour, there was a free day the next day. This would be where all the goodbyes would be said.

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