The trip to L.A - Malibu, Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood

We left the motel in Santa Barbara again in good time today and went to visit the famous mission in Santa Barbara, by the same name!  It's still an active church so we had to wait until after mass to visit the worship area itself.   The mission had beautiful gardens and some very old trees too.  We then visited the courthouse in Santa Barbara which is an incredibly grand building, given its purpose.

We then drove on further down Highway 1 and have a delicious fish lunch in a really busy and popular place called the Reel Inn near Malibu Beach.  We drove on along Sunset Boulevard, which was fun as it was so sunny and we had the top of the Mustang down.  For our final visit we drove into Hollywood and parked up to have a walk around the famous Hollywood Boulevard and to see some famous theatres where to Oscars are awarded each year.

We got to LAX at 7pm, returned the car (boo!) and go our 10pm flight back to Heathrow after a truly fantastic holiday.  I'd recommend California as a trip in your lifetime to anyone!

Cambria to Santa Barbara - the last full day

We left Cambria around 11am today after a pleasant night and a good breakfast.  We visited a tiny town called Harmony with a state population of 18.  It didn't take long!  We also stopped at a pretty beach called Spooner's Cove at Montaña de Oro state park.

Our next stop was a visit to the pretty town of San Luis Obispo where we had a rather disappointing lunch in a place called the Blue Sky Cafe but then visited the Mission in the town. It had a very odd double set of seating, giving two perpendicular aspects on the altar table.  There was also a lovely museum of modern art in San Luis Obispo, that we enjoyed visiting.

We drove on to Santa Barbara where we were booked into a nice motel called the Sandman.  It had a great pool and spa and a nice spacious room.  We had dinner at a local cheap Mexican restaurant then wandered along to a local pub called the Tiburon, which was actually quite a fun bar with a friendly barman and decent beers.

Driving down Highway 1 and Hearst Castle

We left Monterey this morning to start the drive down Highway 1, driving along the area known as the Big Sur.  There were some spectacular views and we stopped several times to take them in, including visiting Julia Pfeiffer-Burns park to see a beautiful natural waterfall (McWay Falls) that comes out of the cliff onto the beach.  We some amazing groups of seals on some beaches too. We visited Hearst Castle in the afternoon, a fascinating place built by William R Hearst in the early part of the 20th Century.  It has a bizarre mish-mash of European antiquities as part of its structure and I think is more stunning outside than inside!

We got to our Motel, the Cambria Shores Inn, soon after 6pm and wandered into Cambria itself for dinner a bit later.

Monterey Bay Aquarium and a trip around 17 mile drive

We went to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium today. It was about a mile walk down the hill from Mike and Jan's house. It's a really good aquarium but this week is Spring Break in the US so it was teaming with barging kids, making it hard to see much.  What we did see was pretty impressive though, particularly the jellyfish collections. We had lunch in a nice restaurant that was part of a fishmongers so had extremely fresh fish.

After lunch we walked back up the hill to the house and picked up the Mustang to go for a drive around the area.  We visited a really pretty area called 17 mile drive with some amazing houses and some amazing views of the bay.  We went back into Monterey later for a wander around the older parts of the town.

We had a nice Thai meal for dinner in the evening on Lighthouse Avenue, a really pretty avenue just to the West of the centre of Monterey, in Pacific Grove.

The trip to Monterey - sea otters, seals and more food!

After breakfast we left Evergeen Lodge around 11am today to head to Monterey to Mike and Jan's seaside home there.  The drive was quite spectacular and it included driving back into Yosemite National Park and then out via El Portal where we some more wonderful views.  We drove on then via Mariposa and to Merced for lunch.  Following lunch we drove on through the central valley where the temperature got up to just short of 30C.  We had the top down on the Mustang and it was pretty warm!

 We drove on via the San Luis reservoir and once we were over the hills and out of the central valley the temperature rapidly dropped to more like 13C.  Time for a jumper and putting the roof back on the Mustang!

After seeing some sea otters and seals in Moss Landing we got to the house in Monterey around 6.30pm.  We went out for a nice dinner with Mike and his son Tom at a restaurant near the Monterey aquarium called the Cannery Row Brewing Company.  Canning fish used to be big business in Monterey, hence the name of the area.  We some some seals sleeping on a nature reserve beach on the way to dinner too!

Yosemite Valley

We drove for about an hour from Evergreen Lodge today into Yosemite Park itself and to Yosemite Village to explore.  It was quite an exciting drive with the hood of the Mustang down and the temperature getting quite low as we got up to more than 6,000ft altitude.  We made numerous stops to see (and photograph) the quite stunning views along the way including the famous half-dome.

Once in the village we had lunch and looked at the visitors’ centre and a short film about the area.  We walked along to the base of Yosemite Falls to see quite a spectacular sight.  Later we drive along to Camp Curry and decided to walk to the Vernal Falls.  We quickly realised that the walk would have taken longer than the daylight we had left so had to turn back only some of the way up. 

We came back to Evergreen Lodge in time to see a beautiful sunset and also to have a dip in the lovely pool and hot tub onsite.  I’ve never been in a hot tub you can swim lengths in before!

We had another dinner at Evergreen, ready for departing tomorrow back to the coast to stay at Monterey for a couple of nights.

The trip to the Yosemite area

Mike kindly drove us to Oakland airport today to pick our hire car to continue our trip around California.  We were offered a very cheap upgrade to a convertible Mustang so we jumped at the offer.  We drove to our accommodation near Yosemite, the Evergreen Lodge and got there late afternoon.  We had a small explore and then dinner followed by quite an early night ready for a trip to Yosemite Valley tomorrow.