Saturday 19/04/2008 - Santa Monica, Mexican Border, San Diego and Carlsbad (Carmel Valley?)

Mileage - ~240 miles (via Santa Monica, Mexican Border, San Diego and Carlsbad - Carmel Valley?)

Went out last night in Santa Monica. Lots of bars and Restaurants everywhere - all of them packed. Jaffa had a bit of a Charlton Heston "Planet of the Apes" moment as we walked onto the pier. "Dammit all to hell" - after 4500 milles Jaf thought that he was back at South-End Pier in Essex. Amusement arcades, pikeys drinking lager and fishing off the pier, etc. It also got suprisingly cold despite getting up to 33C (about 90F) yesterday in LA. We went down to the beach and touched the water which was warm though and finally we ended-up in a nice little Italian restaurant after taking a photo of Jaffa outside the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant. On another note we also thought that we saw Will Smith last night (and Kevin Bacon in a Prius in LA nr. Bel Air).

We finally made it to a launderette and washed all of our festering clothes. The bloke on the machine next to us looked like an aged Jimi Hendrix - we asked him how the machine works as we'd never been to a launderette before. He was funny and told us to put the powder into the conditioner bit so we ignored him (which was good).

After going down Muscle Beach/Venice and seeing the sights (cool place but we left before it got hot and therefore didn't see Pamela Anderson or Hasselhoff), we decided to head down to San Diego and the Mexican border as it's only a few hours drive. We had a good view of Tijuana in Mexico, but turned around as we'd probably have problems with visa's and the hire-car.

We're now in a place called Carlsbad as we've started down Route 101 - The Pacific highway. Did 240 miles today despite not leaving Santa Monica until late afternoon. Most of the places en-route seem like a playboy's paradise, this was the scummiest place we could find but it's still pretty flash. We've walked around for a while and found another excellent bar/grill on par with the Inyokern one. It's a real surfer place and Jaf commented on how all the women are nearly as beatiful as his wife (editor - I think he started missing her by this stage).

Highlight - Mission complete (we made it), having clean clothes, Venice Beach, seeing Mexican border, seeing marijiuana man and roller-skating Jimi-Hendrix in Venice, Pacific Highway.

Lowlight - Some drunken black guy shouting his head-off/roaring in the street outside of the hotel in the middle of the night (the Po-lice were on the case eventually though), wasting time doing laundery (Jaffa insisted on puting the clothes through the drier 10 times, traffic, California is a bit more expensive than the rest of the US..

Tomorrow - contiune along Route 101 to Santa Barbara, Malibu and beyond.

Andy and Jaf.

Friday 18/04/2008 - California - Barstow, Los Angeles, Santa Monica

Mileage - ~280 miles (via Barstow, Los Angeles, Santa Monica)

Stayed in the Sierra bar until closing time (drank lots of Bud). The barmaid told us to drive carefully (obviosly we weren't driving)! Everyone else got in their cars / Harleys and drove off. One guy got into his black Firebird, put Nirvana on full blast and shot out of the bar, across the main road with no lights on, narrowly missing a house. It was as funny as hell, like something out of Dukes of Hazzard.

This morning we got up, I opened the curtains to find there was a junk yard next door. I then heard the screech of tyres and someone crashed into the junkyard! Crazy little town but you've got to do something to pass the time when you're living in the middle of a desert. (Editor - also found a credible explination as to Jaffa's skid-marked towels - see photos).

Got to Barstow which is a pretty good place to stop en-route, but we didn't hang around and continued down 66 until I spotted Bottle-Ranch (Google it) which I'd seen on a documentary. We met the old fella who owns it and had a good chat. He's a very friendly chap and he basically makes trees out of bottles just for the hell of it. He's completely non commercial and as he put it to us "I'm a free man with no chains or shackles." Strange but cool.

We eventually got to San Bernadino / L.A. which had more traffic than we were used to after several days of quiet desert roads. My way points for Route 66 went nuts in LA and started sending us around in circles so we ignored it and stumbled across the correct route whilst also finding Santa Monica Boulevard, Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills, The Hollywood sign (from a distance), Ocean Drive and finally driving onto the Pier in Santa Monica - the Pacific and the end of the 'proper' road-trip. It was a pretty annoying day of driving but we're releaved to be here as this place is packed and has a vibe. We've just checked into a motel (expensive by our cheapo standards) and over 30 mins back to the pier on foot but nearer to Venice Beach. We're off out now - it's a bit like Magaluf here, warm and lots of party goers who have escaped from LA for the weekend.

Highlights - Bottle Ranch, 5 Weinershnitzel Chilli-Dogs for $5, finishing Route 66 and more in less than two weeks. Over 4500 miles in total - no problem, we could quite easily turn around and do it again now!

Lowlights - Couldn't find a motel with vacancies next to the beach (including the Hotel California), frustratingly slow progress through LA, we have run out of clean clothes and have been re-cycling - we need to do some laundry soon.

Tomorrow - who knows, we have to do a bit of planning tomorrow whilst soaking our feet in the Pacific.

Jaf and Andy.