Thursday 2nd February 2006 – 6am London
The alarm goes off at 6am causing the agony in my throbbing head to intensify. I silently cursed myself for having drunk too much the night before. But it was my friends leaving drinks so how could I not go?
Our car picked us up outside our London flat at 7.30am. Now as well as a throbbing headache I feel sick. Curse curse curse.
We arrive at heathrow airport. I should be excited but I just feel ill. We check in and decide on ordering a full english breakfast.
I pick around the sausage, bacon, eggs and beans and end up just nibbling on a crust of toast. I figure this is enough in my stomach to pop some nurofen.
POP
Luckily the flight wasnít full and we had the 4 middle seats to ourselves. So we spread out and slept and my headache started to ease. Ahhhh bliss.
Thursday 2nd February 2006 – 3pm Los Angeles
We arrived in LA at 3pm, and caught the Hertz bus to pick up our Ford Mustang. I’m really hoping it’s red one. When we arrived at the Hertz desk, tired and jetlagged after a 12 hour flight, we were faced with all these decisions. Do you want a 4WD, it will be the same price and better for up in the mountains and the desert? What about a Toyota Sebring convertible? More luggage space? And on and on the questions went.
We cant make decisions at the best of times let alone tired, hungover and jetlagged after a 12 hour flight. Anyway we decided to stick with the original decision of the Ford Mustang convertible. I hope its red, I hope its red!
It was blue.
We put the top down and drove around the corner to our hotel. We got a special on lastminute.com for the Crown Plaza. Only $55 /night. We had a nice room overlooking the airport.
We wandered down for an early dinner. I had half a chicken and chips and Mike had a steak. Then after dinner there was some jazz playing in the bar, so we watched and listened for a bit before heading up to bed.
I wouldn’t recommend the Crown Plaza, nor would I stay there again. There were yellow stains on the sheets, which I had to get them to change. Disgusting.
Friday 3rd February 2006
We awoke at 4am, got up at 6am and were itching to get on the road. First stop was Santa Monica Pier for breakfast. We arrived at about 9am and nothing was open. We wandered down to the pier and watched the sea mist coming in. Remarkable. One minute it was bright and sunny, then next you cant see a thing.
This building was visible 5 mins before this photo was taken
We found breakfast, ate and continued on up the coast. It was really cold in the convertible with all the sea mist. The visibility wasn’t too great either. In fact we couldn’t see a thing. We decided to head up into the mountains. We stopped at Malibou Creek National park to go walkees. It was really hot and couldn’t believe we were freezing 10 mins ago on the coast.
We walked through the park, and saw many lizards.
Lotsa Lizards
This is the scenery for some of the TV series Mash.
We got lost and what was to be a 1 hour walk turned into a 3 hour walk.
We continued driving along the coast for a bit and stopped at an overpriced motel in Arroyo Grande. We were both tired and it was dark.
Saturday 4th February 2006
Today we met Jerry – no, not Jerry Seinfeld but one of my work colleagues from UBS who works from his ranch about halfway between LA and San Francisco.
We met up at this big pink building called the Madonna Inn at St Luis Obispo and had a coffee. He recommended we visit Hearst Castle and Pebble beach, but first up go and see the seals at Avril Beach, which was 5 minutes drive away.
Grunting Seals
The seals at Avril beach lay on a raft merrily grunting away. We ate our lunch which we picked up at the supermarket earlier that day. Some fresh rolls and fresh fruit. Very much needed after all the greasy meals we had been eating.
We then ummmed and ahhed about hiring some dune buggys and hooning around in the sand dunes on Pismo Beach, or a hummer ride in the sand dunes. The hummer ride won the toss. This was the most amazing, exciting ride ever. Hummers can lean up to 60 degrees. There were a number of times I was convinced we would roll over and die. But a definite must for anyone in the pismo beach area.
Nervous Smiles from the beat-up Hummer
That night we stayed at a little beachside motel in San Simeon. In the evening we had a fantastic mexican meal, and the corona was only $3.
Sunday 5th February 2006
Off for some more coastal scenery.
Driving up the west coast
Today we saw spouting whales. Drove through the Big Sur. We decided to keep on driving to San Francisco.