Los Angeles to San Francisco

---

How wonderful to meet up with Al and Lou in LA after a long flight and four films later!! I left on Tuesday afternoon and arrived on Tuesday morning , this international date line thing is doing my head in!
But no rest for me , we took off in our hired 4 wheel drive - Al was conned into taking a much bigger car than we needed , they said we needed more luggage space - can you believe it! We headed for Santa Monica and it was like Blackpool , and it rained , and Al was driving, and it took us ages to get there , LA is a devil to navigate , few road signs and no sat nav. But still we had a grand late lunch and what made Lou's day or even her holiday was the fact she was asked for her ID before they would serve her wine. how is that for a compliment?!!, I had to mention to the waitress that this break was in celebration of Lucy's 40th, well she couldn't believe it!!!. We spent the evening on a bar crawl, once back on home ground and got to bed after 2.30 having drunk wine , margaritas vodkas and - well I cant remember. didn’t feel too well in the morning but hey ho.

Wednesday was full of culture , brunch on the terrace with the sky sparkling blue and the January sun warm on our backs, we journeyed to the hills behind Hollywood, took in the famous Observatory , the Hollywood sign and then moved on to the john Paul Getty Centre. What a fantastic place . There was a Rembrandt exhibition and we drank in the beauty of the 19 century artists. We dined at a wonderful fusion tapas bar on sunset strip and decided just one night cap was in order!

Our drive on highway 1 towards San Francisco took us via Santa Monica again and what a difference the sun makes , the main drag is really quite attractive! We drove north along the coast with views of the ocean which when i could bare to take my eyes off the road ( Al was driving!) were lovely .we sped past Malibu where all the stars have their beach houses and arrived in Santa Barbra in the mid afternoon. It is an interesting town very Spanish , with lots of trendy shops restaurants and bars. There also seemed to be quite a few homeless people and most had dogs! We had a couple of apres dinner drinks and i have to say many more post dinner drinks , Al and I left the bar at 2.00am and Lucy was still chatting merrily away until 5am!!! Oh my god did we both feel unwell the next day? In the whole of my nearly 5 months i think i took panadol for a sore head once or twice maily in Brisbane!!!. I have taken them every morning since meeting up with the gang!!

We left late the following morning heading for Monterey about 200 miles north, but Lucy and I felt so unwell that we didn't make it that day and we stopped off in a very pretty town called cambria up in the hills behind the coast, after only a couple of driving hours. The only trouble was this lovely western town with antique shops ethnic stalls and restaurants was having a wine and art festival this week end , so how were we to manage all the free wine tasting in all the participating businesses??! You will be pleased to know that Lou and I had a 24 hour pass from drinking!

our drive from Cambria to Monterey was absolutely spectacular . we drove along the Ocean Highway hugging the hills as it twisted and turned up and down along the coast.
We had spectacular views of the Pacific as it crashed against the shore in the warm sunshine. We were so lucky to stop and see the gigantic elephant seals as they basked in the sun nursing their cubs and getting ready for the next mating season. We were not so lucky in spotting any whales at the whale watching station , we were just a little too early in the season. But we had the wonderful sight of pelicans soaring on the thermals and guiding us along the road . You will understand what I mean when you see the picture!

Monterey is another small town with a lovely harbour and wharfs that house shops and restaurants along its sides. We broke our non drinking 24hours with a glass of local vino as you do and went on from there. And would you believe it we went to the tourist centre to just get an idea of what to do and find a hotel, the first hostelry i called had vacancies and it turned out to be the best in town - blimey pimey - our pockets are suffering¬ We decided to spend Sunday morning in Monterey and walked in the warm sunshine along picturesque streets to the aquarium which was fab .

We have just 100 miles to go to reach San Francisco which we intend to do in the aftrnoon - and I shall buy flowers for my hair!!

love

Caro
xxxxxx

---

Photos

Now this is interesting!
a camera and mirror doing a 360 degree view of LA and transmitted inside the observatory onto a flat table top and me taking a picy of me in the mirror - work that one out!