Sixteenth day (15/Jul) - Early swim & Bye car

We got up early as we had to move the car (we left it at the park meters so we needed to move it before 8am). We moved the car back to the beach parking and decided to go for an early walk on the beach.

But as we were walking on the shore, the water looked so good that I went for a swim! It was 8 am and I was already swimming in the Pacific! I even wrote it on Facebook from my phone when my feet were on the water.




The water was so good so early, and I was almost alone on the water, I only saw one surfer quite far away.

After the swim we walked 30 min on the shore, then came back for a shower and then went breakfast. I found on google maps a trendy place with healthy breakfasts, although a bit expensive! We had "garden omelette", while looking at the sea.








After breakfast we walked around venice beach, checked the shops and funny t-shirts etc.

Came back for work, then we went to leave our rental car to the loews hotel. We left it there, then walked to the Santa Monica pier, and went to Bubba Gump for lunch.













The meal was very good, we even got desserts! Edina got a cool new Bubba Gump hat at the restaurant shop, and then we walked back to the hotel.

Fifteenth day (14/Jul) Part II - New hotel & Beach

At Solstice Canyon we saw a couple of typical american school buses. And then another on our way back!







We arrived to our hotel, the Cadillac hotel in Venice Beach. First thing on arrivak: checking that the internet connection works ok so I can work!





The room looked nice and had good size. The shower was very big, and you could see the sea while having a shower!




The location is fantastic, it's on the first line of beach! So after leaving our stuff and having a sandwich, we went to the beach..









The day was fantastic! We had a swim, the water was not too cool. You could go very far and the water would still be at waist level. We saw a couple of "Baywatch" so I had to take a photo..




We sunbathed a bit more, I went swimming again..




We walked a bit on the beach and went home to take a shower. We had to move the car as the parking was closing at 10pm, so we went looking for a McDonalds for dinner. Instead of drive-thru we wanted to eat in but we didn't expect what we found inside..

Then back home and our first night at the hotel! We watched a bit of TV and then to bed.

Fifteenth day (14/Jul) - Bye bungalow! & Santa Monica mountains

We were sad as it was our last day in our nice bungalow.. We already considered it as our home! This was our last breakfast in the garden so we took some pictures.








We packed our bags and were ready to leave and James (the landlord) showed up so we took a last picture with him.




We got everything into the car and left the house. We were sad! Anyway it was 10 am and we couldn't check in to the hotel until 3 pm so we decided to go visit another national park: Santa Monica mountains.

It was only 1h away so we had enough time. Before arriving we stopped in a 7/11 and got some water and sandwiches. And ate a couple of corn dogs.

We got into the park and took a small road between the mountains, with plenty of curves.

We found a couple of old style buildings so we stopped to take a few photos.
















This place was a restaurant but it was closed so we couldn't see the inside.









We kept driving and we found a nice "mirador", from where you had a nice view of the mountains and the lake.









Then we drove down the mountain to Malibu and then back up to Solstice canyon. There were warning signs about rattlesnakes!

Fourteenth day (13/Jul) - Home work

We spent the whole day at home as I had a lot of work to do. The only interesting thing was lunch as we ordered pizzas from an italian restaurant that was recommended to us by the landlord. They were unbelievable!

On the evening we had to pack as we were leaving our beloved house the next day! So we took a few last pictures..

Thirteenth day (12/Jul) - Desert

At around 10 we left for Joshua Tree national park. It was 3h drive. Before entering the desert, we went to get some petrol. We didnt't know which petrol the car needed so we spent some time figuring it out!

On the way we found literally thousands of wind turbines, as far as you could see it was full of them!

The picture doesn't really show how impressive it was.




We entered the national park, it was unbelievable hot, it was around 110f which I think it's about 40 degrees celsius. As we were going up the mountains there were warnings to switch off the air conditioning to avoid overheating the engine! Our engine got a bit hot actually..

This is as we were entering the desert.







We stopped to take some photos. Outside was almost unbearable, and quickly after the pictures we jumped to the car and set the air conditioning full on!









We spent around 3 hours driving around the desert. We were almost alone, you could spend 20 minutes before seeing another car.









There wasn't anything inside the desert, no petrol stations, or shops, or mcdonalds.. Nothing! But we were prepared and brought with us a gallon of water.




We got in deeper and deeper, the views were simply spectacular. It was just unbelivevable watching all that from the car.









We got braver and went even into an unpaved path. It was completely empty and it was great!




After more than 3 hours around the desert we finally went out of the national park into the main road. We still had 3h more to drive back home!

We stopped at a place called Baker's or something like that for a hamburguer before arriving home.

Twelfth day (11/Jul) - Spain World cup final!

Formula 1 and then straight away the world cup final betweeen spain and the netherlands. The day was fully booked!

And we became world champions!!! We celebrated with some beers!

Eleventh day (10/Jul) - Beach

We drove to the beach, and this time I made some videos from the car! The day was very good and sunny. Here is a video (register to vimeo to be able to see it on HD)

http://www.vimeo.com/13241196

We stayed near the baywatch. I had a swim (my first swim in the Pacific ocean). We stayed sunbathing a couple of hours and enjoying the day.

We saw the baywatch in action! One of them was walking near us and suddenly he started running, we looked and at around 300m from us there was another baywatch running into the sea, then submerging under the waves like in the tv! More impressive was that after just 10 seconds from seeing the guy runnning an helicopter appeared and they gave them signals wigh the red floating device.












We walked around the beach for a while, then came back home. For dinner we wanted to try some new fast food place and we went to Taco Bell... Not our kind of food! First and last time!

Tenth day (09/Jul) - Home

After a tiring day the day earlier, and some early morning calls and work, we spent the day at home, resting, watching the TV and chilling in the garden.


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Ninth day (08/Jul) - Malibu & Getty museum

After a nice breakfast, we booked a ticket to the Getty museum, and then drove to Malibu. To get there we drove a bit on the Pacific Highway which is the road that goes next to the sea and that we will take on our journey to San Francisco.

Our tickets were for 3 o'clock so we have quite some time so we decided to drive inside Malibu, check the big houses, and go to the beach. We found a nice place that looked like a natural reserve and parked there. It actually was one:




We found a beach under a cliff, and we found a little path and then stairs that went to the beach, it was secluded! It was completely empty except two surfers. We walked around the beach.









We saw other stairs on the distance and decided to go back up on those, but as we were getting closer we saw some warning signs.. They were private stairs! Turns out that those huge mansions on the edge of the cliff have private direct access to the beach. There was one with some sort of mechanical device with rails!

We walked back to where we came from, it was so nice to be in an almost private beach (due to the difficult access).





We went up the cliff, and then walked around a small mountain, took a few photos a came back to the car.






Then we had to drive back direction LA for the Getty museum, but first we stopped for lunch in a Subway. It was not bad, I had a meatball sandwich!

We also went up Coral valley..




The Getty museum was very nice, lots of old roman remains, statues, jars, etc. There were buildings replicating roman cities, gardens, etc.











Here you can see Edina in the middle..


Then we headed home and stopped at Albertsons for some shopping, and that was it!












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