450 miles in the desert and 50 miles in snow

After Las Vegas our next destination was San Francisco. The distance between the two cities is though too big for a one-day drive, so we reserved us a hotel room in Reno. It’s familiarly known as ‘The largest little city in the world’ and as poor man’s Vegas. As we didn’t have breakfast at the hotel in LV we drove a bit outside the city center to a Food4Less supermarket to crab something to eat. We all took a 3 sandwiches bag because those sandwiches were stuffed with meat, cheese and veggies. We were aware of the fact that there are literally no towns between Vegas and Reno so the possibilities to find food on the way were pretty limited. Besides the sandwiches we had some chocolate bars and lots of water. The weather was luckily very good again, the sun was shining and it was quite warm.

Although the drive was long, the fact that we’ve got 4 possible drivers makes it a lot easier. We divided the drive into three sections me being the first driver. I must admit that it’s pretty boring to drive through the desert.. On those 150 miles there were about 7 little curves in total :) so it’s just straightforward the whole time. Although the 3 villages we drove by were very little, there was a McDonald’s in one of them in which we stopped by to have some coffee.. After 8 hours in total we arrived in Reno. The first thing what happened to us there was pretty funny! First we saw some flashing light behind us, so we pulled over and the officer walked to our car.. In our opinions we didn’t do anything illegal so we were pretty amazed. The local sheriff had somehow noticed that we weren’t locals there and wanted to have a chat with us. He asked from where we were coming and where we were going. He also offered his help if we wanted to have driving directions or any other questions about Reno.. The hospitality is awesome here :) After the long drive we were quite tired and didn’t have any energy to walk around the city. We just ate at a Mexican place and went back to the hotel to watch TV and surf in the internet for the first time in 3 days..

The next morning we continued right away towards California and San Francisco. We planned on taking a detour at the Tahoe National Park but due to bad weather we skipped this plan. After the desert the day before, during the National Park leg we confronted almost one-meter high snow banks next to the freeway. The road itself was in good shape and the weather was not below 0° degrees so it wasn’t icy or frosty. The landscape looked pretty much like it is in the Alps during fall. We had to stay over 30 minutes in a queue as a truck had crashed and one lane needed to be closed from traffic. The closer we got to SF, the warmer became the weather and in Frisco it was almost 20° degrees once we got there.. It can be stated that the weather conditions have changed enormously in the past 24 hours. First a hour-long drive in the desert, couple of hours in snow on the mountains and now almost summery conditions at the verdant Pacific coast :)

In SF we had first some difficulties in finding our hotel but once we managed to find it we were pleasantly surprised. We didn’t expect it to be this good! Our room is very big and we thought we wouldn’t get any breakfast but we’ll get a really good one. Actually it’s the best breakfast what we’ve gotten at our hotels so far! After check-in we continued to SF city center to have a look at it and to find a Thai restaurant Matti found on the internet earlier. We found the restaurant easily but finding a parking spot seemed to be harder than anywhere else. We drove at least a half a hour around the blocks before we managed to find a free spot. The restaurant itself was okay, the food was cheap and tasted fine but the dishes weren’t spicy as they should’ve been.. Maybe we looked too foreign for them that they didn’t wanna spice up too much.

Drive to San Diego via Laguna Beach

Today it was time to say goodbye to LA for 10 days and begin our road trip through California and Nevada. First stop is San Diego and on Sunday we’ll continue to Vegas and from there to San Francisco for a few days before returning to LA. I’ve heard and seen from pictures that the coastal highway from Frisco to LA is spectacular and one of the most beautiful roads to drive but I surely can recommend also the coastal highway between LA and Diego. The view was pretty breathtaking for the most part. Although according to the weather forecast it should have rained a bit today, the weather was all day long sunny and warm again. We stopped at Laguna Beach to eat breakfast in a beach side restaurant with a gorgeous view at the Pacific. Our sandwiches tasted wonderful and with that view it’s hard to top :)

The coastal region between LA and San Diego is almost fully covered with villages and cities like Laguna Beach and it’s not hard to believe why people wanna live there. Navicon’s GPS-application for iPhone is working very well and we it’s been really useful and helpful for us. Especially in LA’s concrete jungle we would’ve been completely lost and in troubles without a decent navigation. The freeways here are something extraordinary as all over LA the freeways have minimum 4 lanes and normally there are 6 lanes, so it’s always a little bit of an adventure driving here :) We had looked in beforehand for a premium outlet center north of Diego. The center consisted of around 90 outlet stores of various brands and stores where they sold mostly last season items for a much cheaper price in regular stores. Although we could’ve bought there a lot, we walked or drove away with pretty empty hands. In San Diego we found our hotel easily and right after checking in we continued to Mission Beach, located about 10 miles outside downtown, to watch the sun go down. We were maybe 15 minutes too late there and didn’t catch the best views. In the evening we went for dinner into a nice southern state style restaurant called Kansas City Barbeque where we had a meat and chicken collection for 4 people which was really tasteful and big..

Venice Beach, Beverly Hills, Hollywood

Thursday begun with a nice warming sunshine like the first day in LA too. It’s something unusual for a Finn to put on just a t-shirt in January but we’re not complaining. Today we first went to Redondo Beach, which is about 15 miles from Long Beach hotel. The weather was almost 20 degrees at 11am already and we did a small walk at the beach area there. Our main target for the morning and midday was Venice Beach where to we had still a another 15 miles drive. At the legendary beach we walked up and down the beach boulevard and stopped for lunch at a nice beach restaurant.  

 Next mission was to find our way to Beverly Hills to take a look at how the really rich people live. And well, they’ve got pretty nice houses and cars there :) We didn’t exactly know where we were driving and soon we noticed that we were at the Hollywood Hills so we continued our journey through the hills and finally arrived to the Hollywood Boulevard. We pulled over and started walking up and down the Walk of Fame. Then it was time to drive closer to the Hollywood sign and we found us driving quite small hill roads again. Drinking coffee at Starbucks’ we got the idea of going to a Kings’ game against the Calgary Flames. We drove to Staples Center to check out the ticket situation but unfortunately there weren’t any cheap tickets available anymore. We decided to skip the game and started looking for a place to eat. We found an awesome Korean ‘all you can eat’ barbeque place! The food tasted very good, the staff was super friendly and the price was also really nice.. To be able to see as much as possible in California and Nevada, we’re leaving LA for San Diego today for the weekend.

Ducks vs. Coyotes & Downtown LA

Today we spent our first complete day in Los Angeles and it didn’t go without any problems. Right after we started from our parking lot the maintenance required light went on, so we called Alamo to ask for advice. The conclusion was that we should drive to their location at the Long Beach airport so that we can get a new car. So far so good but we had to make a 40 miles detour from our planned route and it cost us almost 2 hours. But the nice part was that we got a Jeep Grand Cherokee in change which is actually really cool and it’s pretty much bigger than the Camry.. And the best part of the whole chapter is that at the LAX rental station the officer wanted us to upgrade to a SUV but it’d have cost almost $300 and now we got it for no extra price! :)

After the little coincidence we headed towards downtown LA. The distances here are quite big and from our Long Beach hotel it’s a over 40 mile drive to downtown. We just drove there for a while and found a really awesome location at a small hill where the view at the LA skyline was spectacular. After a Taco Bell lunch we continued to Anaheim. After the one-hour drive we went to a big shopping mall to spend some time before the game. At a sunglass store we met a really friendly salesman who wanted to discus with us a lot. We talked about hockey and Finland since he was a big Kings fan by himself. He also gave us some hints for Las Vegas.. In the evening it was hockey time! The game was truly a really good hockey game and the Ducks won 6-2. The only bad thing was that the Honda Center wasn’t even close to being sold out, instead it was quite empty and the atmosphere wasn’t very intensive. But we went to watch good hockey and we got it :)

I'll upload some photos in the near future when we hopefully have a faster internet connection. It's kind of impossible to upload them here due to the very poor connection..

Time to continue to LA

Today it was time to leave NYC and move on to LA. One week is certainly not enough for seeing everything you'd wanna see in New York although we did see a lot of the attractions and don't feel like we would have missed something really important. One thing we all agreed was that next time we'll come during summer. The city was beautiful during winter time too, but for example the Central Park during summer is something I wanna see in the future! So this wasn't the last time in NYC for sure.. Right after today’s breakfast we ordered a cab to pick up us at the hotel to drive us to JFK for the flight to LA International Airport. We thought we’d get a free lunch or at least a snack on the plane but nothing! All you could eat was some light snacks which cost a lot, too much in our minds :) So we were starving when we got to LA and right after getting our rental car we headed to eat at Jack in the Box’s. Getting no food at the plane was not the only negative aspect about American Airlines. At first we were forced to pay $25 each for the bags since they apparently weren't included in the tickets. I'd be happy to say I don't have to fly on AA again but we're flying to Shanghai with AA. So let's give the another shot to give a better impression..

At Alamo’s the clerk strongly was in the opinion that we wouldn’t manage to load our bags into the Chevy Impala or a similar vehicle and wanted us to upgrade to a SUV. Otherwise we’d taken that but the price was way too high for us and he wasn’t in a negotiation mood and we were pretty sure that we’ll get the luggage into the trunk.. And we were right :) It was quite a puzzle and the Impala wasn’t big enough but the trunk of a Toyota Camry was just the right size! The car has not only a big trunk but it’s big in every way and we’re very pleased with it.

We had some concerns about the traffic here but the way from LAX to Days Inn at Long Beach went well, despite the problems in finding the hotel but finally we managed in that too.. In the evening we went for a drive around the suburbs here to take a first look at LA. Have to say that I just don’t get it how it’s possible to have that many fast food restaurants like it is here. There’s on every corner at least a couple of them.. But now it’s time to get some sleep and tomorrow it’s NHL time as we’re going to watch Ducks vs. Coyotes at the Honda Center in Anaheim!