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Friday August 19

I awoke this morning with the air conditioning having kicked in at some point during the night, and I was cold. I thought the coffee shop in the main building sounded interesting; but when I went over there, it was already queued up to the door. So, not having learnt my lesson from previous day, I thought I would stop off and get something on the way down.

Looking at the map, I thought route 1 passed really nothing of much interest once it left 101, so I thought I would continue on 101 right to Los Angeles. Once 101 ran beside the sea once more, we passed wide sandy beaches, dull Californian coastal towns and the occasional island just offshore. Elsewhere, the road ran through brown, rolling hills and vineyards.

Santa Barbara looked fine, from the freeway; palm trees mixed in with the faux Spanish villas. I stopped off at some nameless town to look for somewhere for breakfast; but could either find no where or find no parking spaces. In the end, I went into some sprawling town, along a strip mall; and ended up in a Subway; by that point I was too hungry to care. The weather was fine, hot and sunny, and getting warmer with every mile I went south.

As we approached Los Angeles, the urban sprawl got ever thicker and 101 ever wider. I thought that Los Angeles airport, LAX, would be signposted of a major north/south route; but as ever, I was wrong. I headed ever deeper into Los Angeles, the traffic got heavier, and the turnoffs ever more familiar. By the time I got to Hollywood Boulevard I was worried. Stuck in a traffic jam, I looked at my guide book and realised I should have turned off miles before and headed to Santa Monica. I thought I worked out a route, and headed into the Downtown area before eventually heading west towards Santa Monica.

As I approached Santa Monica, the signs for the airport appeared, and I began to relax. However, it was not easy, as LAX is as surrounded by sprawl as Heathrow is. In the end, after driving round three quarters of it, I saw the signs for the hire car drop off, and once I was satisfied where to go in the morning, I checked into the hotel nearest the Hertz yard. It turned out to be the Sheraton, and I was on the 300th floor, or something. By this point, I was hot and bothered, and all I wanted was air conditioning and cold drink.

After staring at my luggage for some time, I got down to work to pack; repack; and repack again. The case weighed a ton in the end, but it had wheels. My rucksack was to be left behind, and everything else jammed into the camera bag I bought in Portland.

That night I went to the bar to find that there was beer tasting available. Not clever, but I did partake. I got talking to a guy from Minnesota, and he was fine. He was on a business trip and missed his flight home this afternoon. We included a German in our conversation, out of politeness really; big mistake. The German thought he would try to teach us some words, and was insistent we learn this word which meant something bet; or he could have been trying to tell us his name; who knows? I did drink a little more than I intended, but they had Hoegaarten in bottles, which was too good to pass up; at least I lay off the whiskey.