East to West coast road trip

[LeicesterLuke]

Day 29 - the beach
As the bungalow was less than a 5 min walk from the Santa Monica beach, we decided to spend most of the day there. The beach is lovely, and has soft golden sand all the way along. After some sunbathing and bodyboarding (which came with the accommodation) we walked along to Santa Monica pier. The whole area seems familiar, as there are so many films and tv shows that have included that as a location. We tried our first corn dogs of the trip (meh, they were ok) and headed back for some more relaxing. This had been a very busy and hectic month, so we made the most of our chill out time.

As evening drew in, we changed and walked up towards Venice beach. Venice beach is more lively than Santa Monica beach, with the boardwalk having all sorts of shops, shows and performers going on. It also has a lot of restaurants and bars, so we stopped in one of them and had our dinner facing the beach; what a setting. Afterwards we made our way back towards Santa Monica, stopping in a few bars along the way.

This area was a lively one, and we got chatting to a few people. We met some nice people in the last bar that we visited at the end of the night and got into a conversation about the differences between the UK and USA; it's always interesting to hear other points of view. I mentioned that Americans don't seem to get my dry sense of humour, followed by a joke that they didn't realise was a joke; proving my point.

The night nearly ended in disaster, when I realised I'd lost the keys to the bungalow! I managed to climb onto the roof and through an open window so at least we had somewhere to sleep.

[LeicesterLuke]

Day 30 - Hollywood

I woke up in a lot of pain; I'd somehow forgotten to reapply sun cream after getting out of the sea the previous day and now my legs were burnt to a crisp. It was absolutely excruciating! Every time I stood up and the blood went to my legs, it felt like they were going to explode. I had to man up and get on with it though, because we still had the small matter of the lost keys! I managed to find the phone number for the restaurant where we'd had dinner and thankfully they had the keys after they'd fallen out of my pocket (or they're the most honest pick-pockets ever). I walked along to Venice beach again, and although it was a nice walk with a lovely view, with everything slowly opening for the day, the pain detracted from the whole experience a bit.

I made it back and after applying some aloe vera (Brett had some growing in the garden, so he cut some up for me) we jumped in the car and headed off to Hollywood. We managed to find some parking right in the centre that was fairly reasonable, so we left the car there and went to IHOP for some breakfast. This was going to be the last IHOP of the trip! Although we'd bee doing the last *insert inane activity* of the trip for the last few days now.



We did all the usual touristy stuff, like the walk of fame, the hand prints, and bought some socks! As each step was making me feel like I was going to black out from pain (ok maybe slightly exaggerated) we went back to the car and headed towards the Hollywood sign. Obviously you can't actually get near it, but I wanted a good picture of it, and a good view of LA from high up. Our final stop was Beverley Hills, where we'd get a picture of the sign, walk about for a bit and feel very poor.



When we got back, we went out for dinner and had another walk along the beach; it looks amazing whilst the sun's setting, so picturesque.

[LeicesterLuke]

Day 31 - Home time
This was the last full day, we were flying out of LA late that evening, so the next time we got into a bed, it'd be our own back in Glasgow. We started out at the beach again, enjoying the Californian sun before heading to a nearby mall to get some last-minute shopping in. After that, we found an Internet cafe (who knew they still existed) to print out our plane tickets and stopped in a Walmart to stock up on American goodies that we can't get back home. I underestimated the traffic though, so that ate into a big part of our day. We managed to make it back to Santa Monica beach later that afternoon where I managed to sell all of our camping gear that I'd advertised on Craigslist to a nice young lady that gave us an extra $20 to get a couple of extra drinks on last day of our honeymoon. What a lovely gesture!

As the evening started to draw in, we headed to the airport and tried a Cheesecake factory on the way. Again, it was another wait of well over an hour! How is this place so popular?! That was the third or fourth that we'd tried and the wait had been far too long at all of them. Instead we found a place that did a nice burger, which we finished and drove to the airport. I was worried about being charged over any damage to the undercarriage of the car, especially considering there was a weird clicking noise since we went round Monument Valley, but I haven't been charged for anything since, so it's all good.

The plan was to get a midnight flight to Boston and sleep for those five hours so we could wander around Boston feeling at least slightly refreshed. Spoiler: we got zero sleep.

[LeicesterLuke]

Day 32 - Boston and the flight home
We landed in Boston early in the morning after a 5 hour flight, however the time difference meant that it was later later than 5am, so we didn't have a long wait for everything to open. We got our bags and walked down to the water taxi dock, where we'd catch the water taxi to Rowes Wharf. We were able to leave all our bags there, and took a short walk to the Boston aquarium. This was a weird experience, because we really enjoyed it, it was a great aquarium with all sorts of marine life, but we were walking around it like zombies after literally no sleep.



After an enjoyable walk around, we stopped in a bar for our final lunch, where we tried not to fall asleep in our food. Afterwards we took the water taxi back to the airport. Once we checked in and went through to departures, we discovered that all flights to Philadelphia had been delayed (which was where our connecting flight to Glasgow was), and eventually got to the point where we'd miss our connecting flight. After a few hours we finally got put onto a flight that would take us to Dublin, where we could get a connecting flight to Glasgow. This was not fun at all, as we didn't leave the airport until nearly 9pm (remember we'd flown at midnight the night before and still hadn't slept). The flight was ok, and I managed to get just under an hours sleep, although Rach had none again. We then had an hour or two to wait in Dublin before we finally arrived in Glasgow at 11.30am the next day. That's over 30 hours of travelling!

The next week is a blur, as the jet lag hit us incredibly hard.


So that's it! Boston to LA over a month. So many miles, so many memories, so many burgers! I'll write a reflection on the whole trip soon...

[LeicesterLuke]

Hi all, I know I said I'd write a reflection soon, but life kinda got in the way.

I'm going to come back to this with a proper reflection, but until then, my best advice is to find a balance of documenting as much as possible without that becoming the main focus of the trip. We saw so many selfie sticks along the way, where people were experiencing everything through a phone or camera screen, rather than actually looking around them and taking the odd photo or video to remember what they saw.

I was almost embarrassed to take videos of seemingly banal things, but looking back now, it helps jog memories of what we were doing at the time, and helps join the memories up together to more of a narrative than just memories of random events. We still watch the Youtube video I made every few months, and every time it takes me back to that amazing month we had. Each time I watch it makes me more determined to return and do some of the things we never got a chance to do.

Thanks to everyone for the encouraging messages, I'm glad that some of you found it useful and/or entertaining, and I hope that it continues to encourage others to take their own American road trip.