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Los Angeles, CA

Mission #942: A 33 day journey across North America
Starting point: San Francisco. End Point: Miami

Driving across America gives us the flexibility of backpacking but without the inconvenience of feeling like a turtle with a sore back. I was blown away with the car rental’s attitude towards us and their cars. They said, just go out the back and choose any one of the 15 cars, then we just drove off. We chose a brand new Chrysler to take us the required 6,000+ kilometres cross country.
From San Francisco, we headed to Palo Alto and the Apple headquarters in Silicon Valley before heading north to Napa Valley. The picturesque main street of Palo Alto wasn’t what I had expected the surprisingly dull town of Napa to look like. It’s funny how things aren’t always what you’d expect. Napa Valley however, the valley where all the vineyards are in, is a stunning array of rolling hills lined with vines. It is the only wine region in America we’d heard of but in fact this region only contributes to 4% of the wine in California (90% of the country’s wine is from California). We have tried our fair share of wine tasting in New Zealand and Australia and haven’t had to pay for it. It seemed as though in Europe, Africa and now North America, a tasting fee of between $10-$25 per person is required. Fortunately, we chose the only vineyard we visited in the Napa Valley well. Of course, it helped that we were armed with a buy 1 tasting, get 1 free voucher. At 4:30pm we pulled into Jamison Ranch just as the sun was setting over the vines. A two story log cabin mansion with a wrap around ‘Queenslander’ balcony made for a perfect setting to enjoy the 4 Californian wines, primarily reds. It was a shame our camera battery decided to die here. As a positive. I’m thankful that our stingy ***** decided to go for cheap Chinese over an exy Napa wine and gourmet dinner. It was the best Chinese we’d ever had, even more so than in China.
A slow start leaving Napa meant we were a little short of time resulting in a drive to Muir woods but not actually walking around them. We were time poor because we had to be in LA the following day, via the coastal, slower road. I’d chosen that particular southern freeway over the faster inland motorway as it hugs the coastline and coastal towns. Fortunately, Dave was happy with this decision to drive the extra distance. The coastline has a hint of Australia’s Great Ocean Road with a touch of New Zealand’s rugged, dark sand, cliff faces and jagged edges. The road is so close to the ocean, the spray clouds the view.

“Random fact #6. USA has 25 million war veterans. 75% them served in a war. 70 million veterans, family members of those who served are eligible for financial support or benefits.”

For a solid 9 hours, we continued to drive along the coastline south. From our accommodation in Monterey, the road wove though the Big Sur forest perching on the cliff edge. Up and over the hills and into barren farmland on one side of the road to elephant seals on the other.
After a long drive, we arrived into Malibu for a 2pm breakfast/lunch/dinner. Surprisingly, there were only 3 restaurants along the beach front. Malibu has back-to-back beachfront mansions but few restaurants in between. I’d expected something like Sydney’s expensive beachfront restaurant strip. Driving from the beach into the heart of L.A was simpler than expected. When choosing accommodation anywhere around the world, it’s purely dictated by price, then location. We chose the cheapest dive in L.A, located on Sunset Boulevard. We got the true blue cheap L.A dive experience too. At 2am LAPD busted open our neighbours door, just like in the movies, before he got handcuffed and taken away.
For our only full day in L.A, we decided to do a hop on hop off bus. L.A is very much spread out with ****** public transport options so this provided the perfect way to see the city without having to drive. Just like a Queensland winter’s day, the sun shone with not a cloud in the sky. We spent a few hours over lunchtime walking along the colourful Venice Beach Boardwalk, then all the way down to Santa Monica pier. I think we loved it so much because it reminded us of the Gold Coast, except on a much grander scale. L.A beachfront is utilised with heaps of free options in the sand. There’s volleyball, skateparks, outdoor gyms, bodybuilding centres, slack-lining and rollerblading paths. They even have the Santa Monica ferris-wheel over the water and the Cirque Du Soleil tent in the sand. Cities can be very same-same. LA however, has got to be a world stand out city. Big call I know! It’s all in the feel. Not to mention: it’s not overpriced, it has a beautiful beach, it’s surrounded by 46 miles of undeveloped mountain range, the streets are spotlessly clean, people are helpful and the traffic was much better than expected. Did I mention the beautiful beach and the weather. There is always something going on too. We went for a walk along Hollywood Boulevard and there was a red carpet premier and two dozen film and camera crew. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so sadly I don’t know who we spent 10 minutes looking at. A blurry blond? Down at the beach they were also filming a video clip for an ‘up and coming’ pop artist. There are hundreds and hundreds of celebrities who live in the foothills of Hollywood Hills, Beverley Hills and BelAir. Beverly Hills is the most condensed with A-listers. Everything is so well manicured and ‘perfect’. The streets were even designed with curves rather than straight lines to give a ‘country feeling’. Every street in this postcode, from Rodeo drive to the residential ‘colonies’, have different trees lining each side of the road. Palm trees, pine trees and other gigantic trees complement the wealth hidden behind the high fences. The houses were bigger than I could have ever imagined. The morning we were due to leave we (well, maybe just me) wanted to take a drive through those overpriced postcodes. I should have taken Dave’s rolling of the eyes a little more seriously. I’ll admit to this only once, then please don’t judge me: I bought a $5 map with 400 celebrities addresses on it. It was a good idea at the time honestly….Retrospectively looking at the situation, we wasted precious beach time that we would have enjoyed far more.
I think it’s Day 252 today. What ever day it is, I should have stayed in bed. After wasting the morning aimlessly driving around Beverly Hills, the 1.5hr drive to San Diego took nearly 5 hours. We have a Sat Nav to stop us getting lost and to prevent car-guments. Sadly that couldn’t even help Day 252. When it came right down to it, we were trying to squeeze too much in and didn’t see anything. Half way down the detour to Long Beach, we decided to abort that mission. It seemed as though that was the theme of the day, trying for something and not quite getting there because we needed to reach the ‘next thing’. We drove all day only to get to San Diego, just as the sun was setting. Dave managed to see the long boarding beach but didn’t have time to surf it. To finish the day off, we enjoyed a Mexican meal in Old Town. From the drive around town, to the beach and waterfront, it was obvious that San Diego is a destination to revisit at a later date. Dave particularly, enjoyed the surfing culture and the Mexican influence. Sadly, we have to leave againat 7am in the morning for a 10hr straight, highway drive back up North, to Lake Tahoe to visit friends. We do this and we never learn. Maybe we shouldn’t have come all the way south for only a few hours or gone to L.A for a day. Do less, enjoy it more. Or, maybe we got out of bed to learn this lesson, again. Some days aren’t always ‘rainbows and unicorns’. Some days we are better off smiling and remembering that tomorrow is Day 253 – a new day..

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