Summer Hols: California Part I

A few weeks ago I posted a blog that rambled on and on about my trip to Utah on my summer hols. Well, the next leg of my trip was taking me to California. Cali. CA. The state where they elected The Terminator as their Governor. My whole stay in California was scheduled for 7 days; I had booked the flight into Los Angeles and a flight departing San Francisco a week later, but other than that I had nothing planned. Well, I had the rental car sorted, but I’ll come onto that in a moment. I think I might end up splitting this blog into a couple of entries: one for SoCal and one for NorCal, as otherwise it could be pretty lengthy.

So, having avoided the Mormon fundamentalists and a life of multiple wives successfully (wait, hang on …) I boarded my plane at Salt Lake City and headed off to L.A.

On landing in LA I headed to the car rental office. When I say “headed to the car rental office” what I actually mean is that I jumped on a bus at the airport and 20 minutes later we were at the Biggest Car Park In The World. LAX is a massive airport. After renting the Camaro in Utah, I had decided to rent a cheap little car for the week here. I’d like to say that the woman at the rental desk was an excellent salesperson, capable of selling ice to an eskimo,  but that would be lying … because I buckled at even the slightest prompt of upgrading to a Mustang. I did get a very good rate, in my defence, and when asked what colour I wanted I did go for a plain-ish one. If a little bling.

With some help from friends in the US that either live or have lived in California, I came up with the rough list of destinations. I managed to visit all of them in the week with the basic plan being to drive North from LA using the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH1) up to San Francisco.

• Los Angeles
• Laguna Beach
• Newport Beach
• Huntington Beach
• Venice (Muscle) Beach
• Santa Monica
• Malibu
• Santa Barbara
• Pismo Beach
• Monterey
• Carmel
• Santa Cruz
• San Francisco

On leaving the airport (complete with MASSIVE grin from the Mustang), I drove around pretty aimlessly trying to get my bearings. Realising I was driving in and out of some “interesting” looking neighbourhoods (and not knowing which gang colours I was wearing), I punched “ the Hollywood Sign” into Google Maps on my phone and off I went. Driving around and through LA is pretty crazy; the driving is nothing like here in Indiana. The freeways were some of the busiest, largest roads I’ve ever driven on. In some places I’m pretty sure there were at least 6 lanes of traffic and everyone bumper to bumper. Again in contrast to Indiana the roads were in pretty good condition – even had cats eyes which were very helpful at night! Driving around was very cool; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, there were palm trees everywhere, and the car was awesome.

The drive towards the Hollywood sign took you through some cool looking neighbourhoods as you headed up into the hills. I parked up at a place that, strangely, also offered horse riding at their “ranch”. Pretty bizarre. There’s a long walk up a continuous, winding slope to get anywhere near the sign which, during midday LA heat, was tough going. The view across the city (or part of it) was incredible although a little off putting when you can see the pollution hovering above it like a cloud. The view of the sign was pretty good too.

Before leaving for LA I had also bought a ticket online to go and watch the LA Galaxy at the Home Depot Center. It was a good game (with all the usual American sports event theatrics thrown in) although I refused to celebrate when Robbie Keane scored for LA (being ex Tottenham and all that plus the fact I was wearing an Arsenal shirt). Despite multiple requests from my sisters (and one of their boyfriends) there was no kidnap of David Beckham. Leaving the game that night I headed further south of LA and to Laguna Beach. I wanted to go down to San Diego, but with my relatively short time I didn’t know if I’d be able to squeeze it in; I guess I’ll have to put it on my ‘list’.

LA and Orange County were incredible for car spotting; it just got boring in the end. Ferraris, Aston Martins, Lamborghinis … it was like being at a real world Goodwood Festival of Speed that I attend in the UK. Although some examples did prove that money doesn’t equal taste or class, as this Rolls Royce that I saw proves … It wasn’t all that bad though, as I saw plenty of beautifully cared for old American classics driven by old men with very young looking girlfriends. Speaking of old men with young girlfriends, I tried to find the Playboy mansion whilst I was out there but other than driving to some huge gates where Google said it was, that’s all I saw.

The weather here was amazing, every day being warm sunshine. Which was lucky as the beaches were huge and packed with people surfing, playing volleyball, or posing. Mostly two of those at the same time; the show offs doing all three. When you’re glowing in a UV ray induced bronze and have spent hours in the gym, that’s fine. But I wasn’t and I didn’t. I don’t possess that truly English capability of going bright red in the sun, but I had only been there a day so had some catching up to do. I spent a few days at the beach areas, each one with it’s own character. Newport Beach was really cool; I liked the boardwalk and the pier. I hired a beach cruiser bike for the afternoon and cycled up to Huntingdon Beach and at times I felt like I was in one of the visit California TV adverts as random strangers were high-five-ing me as they rollerbladed, skateboarded, or cycled past in the other direction. All I needed was some random celebrities thrown into the mix.

It’s mostly all true …

Huntingdon Beach is obviously the place to be if you’re an out of work Dr or looking for some evening work, as every small shop on the beach front had a Dr on site that could ‘help’ you with your cannabis prescription; for medicinal use of course. It was a pretty crazy area: I even saw someone dressed in a Santa outfit, just passed out laying on a bench but I wasn’t able to get a photo.

Santa Monica was very nice too, quite expensive, but I loved the pier (which was used in Forest Gump). At night-time, it looked so cool with the fairground all lit up. I also met up with a friend and her family there for the evening, so I saw a familiar face (and got beat by little kids at fairground games!). The beach was massive and a the time I visited it not very busy at all. Moving on from here I went onto Malibu where the sand was seriously white and the ocean ridiculously clear. Compared to any water I’ve ever swam in before, the Pacific Ocean has to be the choppiest, most wavy that I’ve known.

Before hitting Santa Monica, I had gone back into Los Angeles to do the touristy parts of Hollwood and Sunset Boulevard, Rodeo Drive (no I did not feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman), and then Downtown Disney (yes I did feel weird). Rodeo Drive and Beverley Hills matched all the stereotypes that are portrayed in the media; in the couple of hours that I spent walking around the streets laden with designer boutiques, I think I saw at least two women carrying sorry excuses for dogs in their handbags.

To be honest the strangest part of my Disney visit was, strangely, not being a single grown man at a family amusement park but instead my accommodation that night. Now, as I had done in Utah, I had no lodgings booked for my travelling – I was just going to find somewhere each night to sleep. Around Newport, Huntingdon, and Santa Monica I had been really lucky finding great hotels on beach fronts at pretty good rates. However, when I went searching in Anaheim (where Disneyland is) my luck ran out. When the guy at the front desk, standing in his office with bars separating the two of us, tells me that it will cost “$60 for the night, $200 if you want to see the morning” that should really have set my alarm bells ringing. But it didn’t. So I parked the car up, paid my monies, and took my solitary case up to my room where the whole place looked like a crime scene. Adventures are best, right?! This place was so hardcore it didn’t have covers round power outlets (probably ok with wussy American 110v power) and I had a microwave in the bedroom where a TV would normally be.

I think that will do for this post as I’ve written more than I wanted to, so I’ll write the rest of the trip in another entry another time. Even though I was only in the Southern California area for a few days, it’s one of my favourite places I’ve visited in America. Perhaps even the world. It’s definitely up there. And not just because of Katy Perry and her California Gurls …

I’ve got a huge amount of photos of Hollywood and all the beach areas that I went to that I need to upload to my Flickr, so I’ll get on that in the next couple of days too. Bye for now.