Day 19 - LA

Day 19, boohoo only 3 nights left in the states before we return home to the UK. Woke up at a reasonable 8am after another horrible nights sleep camping. (Can definitely conclude that after finishing all our camping, you either need to go for it 100% e.g. Buy an inflatable mattress and a camp stove, hammock etc or sleep in the car and spend nothing.) Walked down to the beach through an immaculately kept trail(NOT) and was pretty nice, really foggy though seems to take ages for the fog to clear especially the higher up you go.

From Road Trip USA

We packed up the tent for the last time and headed off before 10. Drove for miles through thick fog. A lot of road works where there had been rock slides and it had taken the road with it, so sometimes had to wait up to 20minutes to get through the single lanes. Sarah and I were planning what to do in L.A whilst waiting though so it wasn't much of a problem.

Made a detour to drive through San Luis Obispo and stopped at the famous Madonna Inn.

From Road Trip USA

It has crazy décor with every room having a different theme, we just popped into the toilets as we had read that theses are something you should do if you are not staying at the hotel. Stopped off at McDonalds (again) for some snacks before hitting the road again. By the way, McDonalds really is that cheap, cheaper to buy food there than at a supermarket. $1 for a super large coke with 2 free refills against $1 for 900ml of powerade is no competition.

Carried on driving and stopped at Santa Barbara and Malibu(stacey). Got stuck in some bad traffic, just a taster of the carmageddon that will be coming on the day we leave. They are closing the 405 freeway which is the busiest road in L.A. The news has reported that you shouldn’t go out in your car as you will be jammed up for hours. Not looking forward to leaving even more so now that we are potentially going to be stuck in traffic trying to drop our car off and get to the airport.

Arrived at the orbit hostel after a few wrong turns and many turn arounds. Tried to check in and must have forgotten to read through the terms and conditions of this place as it was cash only and we only had a few bucks on us. Had to run across to a Bank of America that was down the street to withdraw some money. A second pin guess later and a dash down the street we had money and paid for our three nights. Not before the receptionist had to pop her head out of her office to say we had given her $20 to little…whoops. Went up to the room to get showered ASAP as we were desperate to head out for some food and to have a proper look around L.A. No wifi signal in our room so once we were ready we popped to the communal area to use the wifi and do some checks before we headed out. Found Pink’s, a really famous hot dog stand just around the corner from us so went and got in line.( It was huge, took around an hour to get served and eaten, but well worth the wait. I had a stretch chilli dog and Sarah had a cheese chilli dog. It was chilli as in mexican bean chilli not just hot sauce(never had anything like it on hot dogs before) and was awesome, super tasty would definitely go back again, reasonably priced too. The wall there was covered with famous peoples photos and signatures so must be popular with the celebrity locals.

From Road Trip USA

From Pink's we headed straight to the grove shopping center not far from the orbit hostel. After a lot of searching we found the parking and where the cinema was (we planned on seeing transformers 3). Movie was due to start at 9.15 and we arrived into the cinema at 9.20, decided to risk it and get tickets for the 9.15 showing. Also got a medium popcorn(salty eugh) and a drink, made it in time for just after the start of the movie so we were pleased with our efforts. Movie wasn't great would have preffered to have a fire alarm go off after the first hour so everyone could leave thinking it was great. The last hour and a half were balls. Highlights of the cinema experience were A. Funny Americans doing what Americans do best laughing clapping and cheering in the movie. B. just how grand the cinema actually was, no tacky building here no sir, only the best for L.A.

Zoomed to the hostel to find no parking so risked it in a dodgy spot outside ( It was fine in the end) and had a well deserved sleep…in a bed! Amazing how much you miss a bed not being in one for a night. Anywho its late and need some sleep after an action packed day, will try and write a blog post on it tomorrow.