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Published: September 23rd 2009
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Climbing aboard the Greyhound bus in San Diego we settled into our seat pleased in the knowledge that this would be our last Greyhound bus journey and happy that the ride from San Diego to Los Angeles would only take 3 hours. We had spent many hours on the Greyhound buses traveling from place to place and we have to say that all in all the experience was not at all as bad as we had been led to believe.
We arrived back in Los Angeles on Sunday 30 August with just over a week before our flight to Fiji. As we had seen much of Los Angeles when we flew in at the start of our trip we decided to hire a car for a few days and drive some of the State Route that runs along much of the Pacific coast of California as it is famous for running by some of the most beautiful coastlines in the world.
We booked our hire car through Alamo which was located near the airport and was only a short bus ride from our hotel. We stayed overnight at the Royal Century Hotel in Inglewood once again on the Sunday
night and headed out early on the Monday to collect the car. We had booked an 'economy' car which was the cheapest option so we were expecting to end up with a rust bucket but we were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at the depot. Once we had sorted out all the paperwork, we were directed to the parking lot where we were told we could select the car we wanted from the 'economy' bays. We had 7 cars to chose from and all of them were really nice. Matt, as driver, opted for a red Chevy Cobalt which was automatic and had cruise control. We nervously climbed into the car and drove out of the depot with us both chanting 'remember, drive on the right!'.
Our plan was to drive all the way from Los Angeles to San Francisco inland and then head back down from San Francisco to Los Angeles via the Pacific Coast Highway and stop off at various places along the way.
We spent the first day driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco. We set off at 10.00am and arrived in San Francisco at 7pm. On the way we stopped off in San
The car we hired
A Chevy Cobalt with air conditioning and cruise control - a brilliant car Jose for dinner and went to a restaurant called Iguana's where Matt took up the Burritozilla challenge, made famous on the TV show Man V Food.
The Burritozilla is a 18 inch long burrito that weighs 5 ΒΌ pounds. It contains meat (Matt chose pork) which is marinated for up to 2 days in a combination of chillies and spices, onions, cheese, 14 ounces of beans, heaps of well seasoned rice, salsa, guacamole and sour cream. It is then all wrapped in three fourteen inch tortillas. After about 25 minutes in, Matt couldn't eat any more and declared 'in the case of man versus food, food won!' He certainly made a valiant effort and got through about three quarters of the Burritozilla.
We left San Jose with full bellies, drove to San Francisco and checked into a motel called the All Seasons Motel in South San Francisco which had the most comfy bed we had ever slept in! We had covered about 450 miles and although exhausted we were also quite pleased to be back in San Francisco as we had really enjoyed our stay there previously.
The following morning we loaded the car and headed off
at 10.00am. We drove briefly around San Francisco and then joined route 1 and were on our way.
Our plan for day two was to drive from San Francisco to Cambria, stop off at Moss Beach, Half Moon Bay, Pebble Beach, Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Monterey and then head through Los Padres National Forest before stopping for the night. We had hoped to arrive in Cambria around early evening so we could have some time to relax but we got stuck in horrendous traffic in Santa Cruz. Due to an oil spill they had closed off part of route 1 in Santa Cruz and we were sat in traffic for over 2 hours. What made it worse was that it was boiling hot and the temperature gage indicated that the temperature inside the car at one point was 95 degrees! We did not quite make it to Cambria and instead we stopped off in San Simeon which is a town just outside Cambria just after 9pm.
Driving along cliff roads in the dark through Los Padres National Forest towards Cambria was quite exciting and we got to see a beautiful sunset. We checked into a motel called the Silver
Surf Motel which was surprisingly nice and very cheap. The room was huge with 2 king size beds plus an inside heated swimming pool. Unfortunately we did not have time to enjoy the swimming pool. We had about enough energy to grab some dinner from a diner across the road, have a shower and crash.
As we had not made it quite as far as we hoped on day two we decided to head off a bit earlier on day three and were up and out at 9.00am. We drove through Cambria, Harmony, Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach, Oceano, Lompoc, Gaviota State Park, Goleta and into Santa Barbara. After driving around Santa Barbara for a while we carried on through Summerland and into Carpinteria. As we had made good progress towards Los Angeles we decided to stop here for the night. We checked into a motel called Casa Del Sol and as it was still early headed to the beach for a couple of hours.
Day four was our last day with the car so again we checked out of the motel early and were back on the road by 8.30am. We drove back to Los
Angeles via Oxnard, Malibu and Santa Monica. We stopped off at Santa Monica beach and walked along the beach and pier.
We then drove through Beverly Hills, Hollywood and Glendale. As we were driving through Glendale we pulled out into the middle of a funeral procession. There were blacked out limos, a huge procession of cars marked 'funeral', helicopters and police on motorbikes. The procession pulled into Forest Lawn Memorial Park and it was then that we realised that we had been driving amongst Michael Jackson's funeral/burial procession.
We then headed back towards Inglewood and back to the Royal Century Hotel where we would be staying for the last few days before flying to Fiji. After making the most of the car and stocking up on some supplies, we dropped the car back at the Alamo depot at 7.30pm. Alamo dropped us back at our hotel free of charge which was great.
We were sad to say goodbye to the car as it turned out to be a great and very reliable car - Matt now wants an automatic car with cruise control when we get back home.
Next stop Fiji!!
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Mummmmma!!!!
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Love the Pics
Hi you two, am so glad you are having such a good time, pictures are excellent. Know that you are now in Fiji and will look forward to seeing how lovely it is when you update blog. Missing you both. Lots of love and kisses - Take carexxx