Golden Gate and Pacific Coast Highway

Sunday started very early for us as we were facing a long drive from SF to Santa Barbara with a lots of interesting things to see. The alarm woke us already at 6.20 and after a considerably feeding breakfast we jumped into the car. Although our main direction was about 550km south, we started towards north first. In the first days we didn’t have the chance to really get close to the Golden Gate and we wanted to have a great look at it, so we drove about 30km right next to it. Thanks to the great weather again, we got some really nice pictures.

After the quick stop our next destination was the Pacific Coast Highway, also known as Cabrillo Hwy that runs at some points right at the Pacific coast and it’s very well known as one of the most beautiful roads to drive. There was no doubt about that. There were a lot of people like us stopping several times at various turnouts to take photos.. Despite the amazing landscape and views the ride didn’t go without any problems. Due to a mud and stone slide the road was closed after around 250km. We had seen the signs informing the passengers about that but we kept determined going and believed that there would be a detour possibility. We weren’t the only ones who believed so and among others we had to drive 80km back to reach the nearest way to the freeway heading south. So that was about 2 hours extra driving but thanks to great views it was certainly not pointless :) We also found a great restaurant on the way in which we had lunch on the terrace looking at the Pacific!

After a long day we arrived in Santa Barbara at 7pm. The last hours went pretty smoothly on the freeway and we even happened to drive close to the beach at sundown. On the way we also drove through Solvang, a small Danish village in the middle of California :) The whole architecture was just like in Denmark and most if its inhabitants are originally from Denmark.. We had no clue about our hotel in Santa Barbara, we just reserved some place the day before, but we were very positively surprised by it. It’s by far the best hotel we’ve been staying so far. The Sandman Inn is quite big with two pools and a Jacuzzi. We had reserved a small room with two queen beds but we got really big two-bedroom room. We’ll spend the day here before continuing to LA tomorrow. Hopefully the weather stays as good as today so that we could hang at beach for a while. 

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.

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!