After over a month I have finally got round to updating by blog. My sister has been hassling me to do it, although I don’t feel too bad as she has been promising for months to send photos of my nieces!!!
So picking up from my last blog entry……
I met my Mum at LAX and we then headed into LA for the night. The hotel we were staying in was right next to the Walk of Fame and the theatre where they hold the Oscars. This was the nearest I have ever been to Keanu and Brad. We had a lovely view of the hills and the ‘Hollywood’ sign. We were very disappointed with Hollywood. We tried to find a bar but we could only find crappy ones so returned to the hotel equipped with bottles of wine. The next day we headed into the hills armed with the map of celebrity homes we had purchased the day before. Luckily I had hired a Sat Nav system otherwise we would have got very lost. This was my Mum’s favourite part. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any stars, but we did see the gates of Leonardo di Caprio’s house! We then drove down Rodeo Drive which was also not as swanky as I expected.
On leaving LA we headed off to San Diego. The drive should only have been a couple of hours, but it ended up as 6 hours as the traffic was so bad. I also had my first run in with CHiPs. For any of you who didn’t see the TV series back in the early 80’s, it stands for the Californian Highway Patrol. Yes, I got pulled over by the police. It wasn’t for anything glamorous like speeding, but for crossing the yellow line into the Car Pool lane. So there I was driving away and they pulled up behind my with the lights flashing. At first I was hoping that they wanted me to get out the way, but as I pulled over lane by lane they followed me. I really didn’t know why had got pulled over, but once he heard my English accent he let me off. I was so happy as the fine for this is usually $341. She didn't say it, but I think my Mum was quite proud of me as this was the first time I had ever been pulled over by the police. Only a few more times to go before I catch up with you Mum :-)
We arrived in San Diego and headed to Coronado to the hotel. The room was very nice and over looked the gardens, and we also managed to make our own mini bar. We had dinner in the town of Coronado that evening and it was very scrummy. The 2nd day I was really exhausted after my trip to Vegas and 7.5 hours total driving the day before, so we just went for a walk in La Jolla. The third day was fun as we took a coach trip into Mexico. We went to Tijuana, Rosarito and Ensenada. Mexico were playing some football match that day and had just won so the streets were full of cars of people waving flags and beeping. It was very noisy but very cool. We also saw a man with a donkey painted as a zebra. If it hadn't been so funny then I'm sure it would have been cruel.
The following day we headed back to the desert to my house and on the final day of my Mum’s vacation we went up the Aerial Tramway in Palm Springs. We only had about half an hour up there, but it was nice to be out of the heat :-) I took my Mum back to the airport on the Tuesday and went back home to pack for my next vacation in Mexico. I will write about that next time, and hopefully it won’t take me a month to do it!!!
