After checking out of the hotel, the first car containing Amy, Pauline, Aunty Sue and Fiona made their way to Pismo Beach while our group (Madonna, Mum, Mat and I) attempted to find a post office. We had bought stamps back in Big Sur but hadn’t yet found anywhere to actually mail the post cards we had written to family and friends back home. We entered America Post into the GPS and within minutes we arrived at our destination. Mat dropped the post cards in the mailbox and we made our way to Pismo Beach to join the others.

When we arrived, Mat got a kick out of looking at the massive trucks in the car park while I got a kick out of looking at the lifeguard stations along the beach. It was exactly like Baywatch! If there are any americans reading this blog they’re probably shaking their heads, but it was still pretty cool for me. As we walked along the pier, I also enjoyed seeing a little shack with “rod rental” on it. Maybe I haven’t visited enough places in Australia, but as far as I know we don’t have shacks on piers, with big cool signs on it. I gazed at the people on the beach and the children playing beach, then turned back. I’ve seen the other side of the Pacific Ocean, so the water didn’t impress me.

Once I reached the carpark I was stoked to see a woody! I’ve only ever seen these cars in photos and movies (or on a t-shirt I had purchased for my dad back in Carmel – coincidentally my sister had bought Dad a nearly identical shirt from the same store the first time she had been to Carmel, I didn’t know that when I bought it). Seeing it in real life, I was in awe of the amount of love and care that had gone into keeping that car in such pristine condition. It definitely exceeded the amount of attention my Suzuki Swift received! I made sure Mat video taped it, then we were back in the car and on our way.

We took the route through Santa Barbara into LA. There had recently been fires there only days before, so the landscape was still scarred. As we drove through we saw many signs thanking the firefighters for all their efforts. I understand a lot of homes had been threatened, but due to the firefighters damage was minimal. Another job well done, and it was fantastic to see people offering their gratitude. In some shops I even saw signs offering firefighters discounts.

Our next stop was at some Buddhist church, or a monks place, or something. To be honest I really didn’t have much interest in it. There was a cost to go on a tour, which only Mum and Aunty Sue ended up going on. The rest of us spent the time sitting on the lawn in the sun, and interacting with some random dogs that approached us. We didn’t have food, and once they realised that they didn’t stay long. It looked like there might have been a wedding going on as there was a lot of people in formal wear, and I think we might have even seen the bride at one stage. I took some random video of the big pit out the front where the monks washed their clothes (it looked quite boring so I didn’t include it in my final video edit) and some beautiful flowers in the pond. Eventually Mum and Aunty Sue surfaced, and we returned to the cars to continue to LA.

We knew we were close to LA once the traffic on the highway started building up. It appeared there was more people trying to get out than there was getting in, which was a bonus for us. I also remember the roads being quite terrible, and incredibly bumpy. Over the course of our time in LA I would soon discover this to be true; the roads were the worst I’ve ever seen. I expect this is from the sheer number of earthquakes they encounter over a year. Why fix it if they’re just going to get cracks all over again?

Amy & co arrived at the hotel before us; I phoned her and she told us she would meet us downstairs. I almost got our car parked for us (which we would have had to pay for) before Amy came out and saved us. I don’t know – I was vulnerable and the man knew it! She used the room key to let us into the car park, we grabbed our stuff and headed upstairs. The hotel was one that Amy had gotten using a mystery deal site, and it was fantastic. It was incredibly nice inside, and had two different wings. One to the left, one to the right. Amy & Pauline, and Mat & I were located in the left wing, while the others were on the right. We received our cards, said goodbye for a few hours, and made our way to our rooms. Side note – they had these “aquariums” set up next to the elevator on each level. The kicker? They were fake! They were monitors showing virtual fish swimming around. I had a bit of a giggle over it though no one else seemed to care. I guess the maintenance on those type of aquariums is cheap!

It  felt like our room hadn’t been opened up for a while when we first walked in, it was a bit hot and stuffy. I went straight for the air con, while Mat took the opportunity to do a tour for the folks at home using the video camera. While he worked his way around, I discovered the fireplace, and to my surprise found it was controlled by a switch! Instant fire! It’s like a pyromaniac’s jizz material! If you listen carefully in Mat’s video tour you can hear me calling out “baby! baby!” trying to call him over. I was also impressed that our bathroom consisted of a large closet with a makeup table, along with the separate room for the toilet/shower etc. Not that I needed a makeup table of course – it was used to dump stuff from our luggage on when we were trying to find things.

After exploring the room, we relaxed a little bit before dinner. After an hour or so we met the others downstairs and went for a walk to find somewhere to eat. We were situated in West Hollywood, which I guess is an area for the “well off” crowd. We saw Porsches, Lambourghinis, and many other beautiful European cars, Mat was in heaven. We also found some rather interesting clothing stores, which contained items like bottomless chaps, and sparkley tops. Quite extraordinary.

I don’t recall the place we ate for dinner, and I don’t even recall how good the food was. I found a photo that showed some calamari though, so I guess that’s what I must have had. Something tells me that I thought the waitress was a little snobby, but I don’t know if that’s right or not. I guess I’ll have to leave the details on our dinner to Amy. I do remember that Amy, Pauline and I sat at one end madly updating twitter/facebook etc on our iPhones, much to the group’s amusement. People need to know what we’re up to, sheesh!

On the way home we split up into two groups again. Mum, Aunty Sue, Fiona and I dawdled along when while the others went ahead back to the hotel. We suddenly found ourselves in the middle of chaos. On the corner of a street there was 9 fire trucks all surrounding a pharmacy. There was no fire from what we could tell, and they put a ladder up against the wall to climb onto the roof but soon after took it down. False alarm? We’ll never know. Thankfully, Aunty Sue was there to provide a detailed first hand account which you can experience in the video below.

I got back to the room, told Mat about the fire trucks, then went to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day – our first day in LA and we were going straight to Hollywood Boulevard. I couldn’t wait.

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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We met everyone up at the main lodge for breakfast; it was a big wooden cabin with quaint decorations. This place really cemented for me that I was in America, compared to anywhere else we had been. It resembled the small town places I’ve seen on the tv – the two bowser petrol station, the wooden cabins, the patriotic flag flying out the front. After breakfast everyone came down to look at our cabin and enjoy a cup of tea before we packed up and continued on our way. Unfortunately it was still quite foggy, so rather than redo everything we missed the previous day due to the fog, we continued towards Pismo Beach. The fog made for some beautiful moments though, where you could see the coast line and the fog over the Pacific Ocean.

Once again I don’t remember much from the car trip as I kept dozing off. In hindsight, it was perfect timing that the two days I’d be at the worst with my flu would also be the two days spent mainly sitting down. The copious amounts of napping in the car probably helped me to get over the flu a lot faster than I normally would have.

At one of the numerous stops for photos of the coastline we heard some seals down in the water below the cliffs. I tried to  video tape it (you couldn’t see anything in the video, just hear the sounds) then we continued on our way. Once we reached Piedras Blancas we found a beach with an entire colony of Elephant Seals, so merely hearing the seals before that seemed so insignificant. The smell was a little bit on the nose, but you could get so close to the seals it was incredible. The only time I’ve seen anything like it was when we visited Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Impressively, they had staff wandering around answering questions – quite the educational place!

I also managed to spend a fair bit of time in the car park, namely due to a beautiful old car with a matching caravan and bicycle. Unfortunately I don’t know what make and model it was, but it reminded me of the old Chevy Bel-airs (this car had Holiday written on the side). I circled the car a few times in awe, then circled some more video taping it. I briefly chatted with the owner and commended him on his “vee-hick-call” before continuing on to see the seals. The car definitely got a lot of looks, and more than a few photographs.You’ll have to look at my video to see it; I’m afraid to say I didn’t take a decent photo.

After the seals we continued on to Hearst Castle. Before planning the trip to the US I had actually never heard of this place, but once I had seen the website I knew it was one of the places I was most excited to see. It looked simply amazing, and once we reached there it exceeded all my expectations. The pools were my favourite areas by far, and I could tell as I made my way through the house that he had had exquisite taste. Amy and Pauline had gone on a different tour since they had done the first one last time they visited the castle, and I was a little disappointed I couldn’t have seen both. I just couldn’t get enough of looking around! I think I could have spent an hour in each room and still not see everything. So much detail!

After Hearst Castle we made our way to our accommodation in Pismo Beach. The lady checking us in was a little rude, but in all fairness she had 8 of us arrive at once and people waiting behind us to get checked in. I think that would make anyone flustered. I apologised to the people behind us (although the fact it was taking a long time *wasn’t* our fault), and they didn’t seem upset, so that was good. Finally we got our rooms and made our way there.

I was excited the room we were given was massive. Huge king size bed, a bath, and lots of living room area. We had received vouchers for a free drink in the bar each, so we returned upstairs to meet up with everyone. Mat and Pauline tried some random beer while I went with the standard vodka and lemonade, and donated my voucher to Mat. Everyone decided to go out for dinner, but as I was feeling extremely tired again and just wanting to kick the illness I opted to stay in. Mum and Amy also ended up staying behind, and we took the opportunity to use the laundry facilities.

After the washing was done, I made my way back to our room. I had planned on having a bath followed by sleep but the laundry had taken so long that in the end I decided to have another lemsip and tgo straight to bed. I had enough time to boil the jug when Mat wandered in, extremely intoxicated. He told me about some gay waiter at the Japanese Restaurant they’d gone to for dinner, and that the guy had apparently had the hots for him (according to Madonna). He then passed out on top of the bed sheets. It seemed like they’d had quite the dinner! I had my drink, turned the lights off, and fell into another deep sleep. We had reached the halfway point in our holiday.

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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