We had breakfast at our motel, said goodbye to the cat and headed out of town to Solvang. Very pretty small town with lots of bakeries based on Denmark. We visited there on our first trip and loved it. Would have missed it the first time except Margaret had read about the place in Lonely Planet. We would go again if we got back over.
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SOLVANG
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LOTS OF FOOD SHOPS.
Luck we had already had breakfast. Food was very tempting but very rich. Even though i like my food, both visits to the USA, i have lost weight even though i had lots of burger meals mainly for convenience sake. All the walking we did in National Parks saved the day. Lost 3 - 4 kg each visit.
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LOVE THE BUILDINGS.
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LOTS OF PRETTY GARDENS.
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LOCAL BIKES FOR HIRE.
I have no idea how much to hire the bikes but looked pretty cool.
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Mortensen's Danish Bakery
One of many bakeries in town. We had lunch here. Yes, we ate that and it was excellent lol. Never ending supply of coffee to go with it.
We left Solvang and headed on down the coast to spend our last night in L A. Cant remember exactle where it was now but we puled into a shopping complex for a coffee and margaret asked a policeman if she could take a picture of his car. He said no worries. When i asked one once, i wasnt allowed hahaha. Must have been her good looks.
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Friendly officer.
We headed further down getting closer to L A and wished we had more time and could go the other way.
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MALIBU ( i think)
If this isnt Malibu, its very close. Its not like you see in Two and a half men with Charlie Sheen. We drove into LA in peak hour traffic. That was an experience. Took quite a while to get across to a motel near LAX. We got a room no worries. Next morning and final day, we went for a drive to Redondo beach. Very overcast again. We had some lunch there on the jetty and would love to have gone and looked at some other beach's down that way. I was worried though as there was a lot of road works getting done with massive hold ups in traffic on hwy. So we went back and dehired car and sat at airport for hours much to Margaret's displeasure. It was a mistake. I was worried we wouldnt make it back in time but the risk would have been better than sitting in departure for hours. At 11pm on friday, we flew out on virgin for Brisbane arriving 8 am sunday morning.
We had a fantastic time. Had only 10 sunny days out of 36 but we think we were just unlucky. Had brilliant weather the trip before at the same time of year. We covered nine states, met some fantastic people, including some who are now friends for life. Food was fantastic and i still lost weight. :) Worst part was it took me two months to sort photo's out when we got back home. Worth it though as we now have a fantastic Photo book. Plus Blu Ray slide show. Still working on the blu ray movie.
As some time has gone since we were there, may/2013, it would be pointless breaking down costs but it cost approx $11000 for 36 days for everything. Airfares included. I see gas is a lot cheaper at the moment but no doubt accommodation would be slightly dearer. We could have chosen some cheaper accommodation in places. Only place we booked was the first night in Barstow. Had to have that booked to get through Customs. We also booked Flamingo before we left. Due to big changes in prices over a couple of weeks. Probably didnt have to book that one. Never had any trouble anywhere else getting a place to stay.
Will we go again? We certainly will and would have probably gone last fall but for illness in family plus our dollar going downhill fast.
Those problems still exist but we hope we can do it all again at sometime in the near future. We recommend to anyone thinking of doing a road trip to do it. And anyone who is worried about driving in USA, dont worry. Drivers are very polite and it dosnt take very long to get used to driving on wrong side of road. :)
Thankyou Lifey for reminding me to get this report done. Ive enjoyed doing it. Hope everyone that reads it does also and you find what you are looking for.
Cheers. Keith (Aka Chief Banana Eater)
