Saturday 22 October 2016

On the way to Monterey

Weather Monterey Max 20 min 12 - quite a bit cooler heading north - NICE!!!!

I was up early and Uberred to LA Union Station (the train line was closed to LA so had to make other arrangements). Union Station is quite impressive and quite daunting and I had no idea where to start and where to go. I needn't have worried because the staff were great and  it all fell together very well.

There was a piano there for people to play if they feel so inclined...this man was remarkable....lucky he got there just as I was about to play Chopsticks ;)

LA Union Station - piano man
My Senior Citizen ticket hmmm


I really enjoyed the train trip and it was certainly very comfortable  and there was heaps of room.


"All aboard"

I could hardly reach the footrest - heaps of 
room and comfortable seats



The train line runs mostly along the coast and a couple of times just a little bit too close to the coast for comfort. See below.




Scary 


The scenery was wonderful - much better than last time when I drove - too busy concentrating on the road.


That highway 101 down there

Quite a grey misty day long the coast

The not so fat controller.



Dinner brought to my seat - Salisbury Steak - it tasted a lot better than it looked. I also had the option of going to the dining car but was happy to stay in my seat. I spent some time in the observation car which has a glass roof and revolving seats so you can maximise the view.

Lots and lots and lots of these big RV's - free camping along the coastline




I met a lovely lady called Lisa - hi Lisa! :)  She got on at San Bernadino (or was it Santa Barbara?  - lol - can't recall.)  Anyway...we chatted for ages and I learned a lot from her regarding the country we were travelling through. Very interesting.


Once we reached Salina it was off the train and onto a shuttle for the final leg, the total trip being from 10:10 am from LA to 7:30 pm into Monterey. I thoroughly enjoyed the travel on the train and look forward to doing some more.

I just had time to book into my hotel, shower and jammie up ready for the new season of The Walking Dead .....OH.....MY.....GOD!! Very dark and disturbing. I won't say anything more in case you haven't seen it yet.

I'm looking forward to exploring Monterey tomorrow to see if it is really as special as i thought it was on my last short visit.

Friday 21 October 2016

Getting ready to go north and repacking and dinner with the McDonnells

Weather  Max 28 Min 15

Spent the day trying to repack my bags to minimise all the handling I will need to do tomorrow while travelling to Monterey.  I'll be glad when I can get rid of one of the cases - it will simplify things.

I also went to Walmart - felt right at home with my black eye and wearing my thongs (the footwear type - just so there's no confusion)

I have known Jo online or about 13 years. She lives with her family in Stafford UK and was coincidentally in California at the same time as me. As this may be the only time we could meet personally I came to Anaheim so we could catch up.  So glad I did. We met for dinner with her husband John and two lovely boys Joe and Tom. You guys should be very proud of your boys....polite AND gorgeous!!

Long time internet friend Jo - shame about the shiner


Early-ish night tonight as I have a car coming to pick me up early to begin my trip northwards

Thursday 20 October 2016

Anaheim California

Weather Max 32 min 14

Another hot day out so I made myself breakfast in bed and had a slow start watching all the Judge Judy type shows on TV.  Luckily they concurred with all my judgements.

I finally got moving and went to Amtrak to try to book my trips to Monterey and San Francisco and was a bit apprehensive as I had already booked accommodation and hoped like hell there were trains to get me there at the same time my hotels were booked. As it turned out there was nothing to worry about and if all goes to plan this will happen

Sunday 23rd      - Uber to LA Union Station 
                             (the rail line between San Diego 
                              and LA is out)
                           - Train to Salinas
                           - Bus to Monterey

Thursday 27th   - Bus To Salinas
                            - Train to Oaklands
                            - Bus to San Francisco

I'm then in San Francisco till Nov 2 and then hopefully I'll be going north to Crescent City Ca. After that Oregon then Seattle  then I will fly to Little Rock, Arkansas.

When I was finished at Amtrak I went to the Orange Square - this is a huge outlet centre - in fact enormous. The last thing I need is to buy anything new -  my bags are popping at the seams as it is until I give out some of the gifts I've brought with me. I wandered through and saw a cinema and the new Jack Reacher movie was on in an hour so I booked a ticket. I love the Jack Reacher books and have read them all but seeing Tom Cruise play the part is soul destroying....the little worm.
Huge place - wish I could have gone into a shopping frenzy

"Hurley" - Jorge Garcia from Lost



His double was at the movies - maybe he was "lost"



While I was waiting I tried to find an optometrist to fix my glasses which got skewiffed when I hit  my face on the foot path. I didn't really expect to find one amongst outlet stores but a building on the outside of the centre had one and they fixed my specs on the spot at no charge.  See - everything just falling into place. :)

The biggest lesson I've learned is ...if you see a loo...use it......can never find one when i need one lol.

I'm looking forward to leaving Southern California. I've been here a couple times before and LA doesn't float my boat but it is a good start/finish point.  Having said that, I love San Diego and I will be there a bit later in the journey. Once I start off for Monterey though I will feel that my trip has really begun.



The eye bruising has spread and is changing colour .
My sunglasses are no longer big enough to hide it :(

Wednesday 19 October 2016

SmashFace - Version#1 is Derek and Version#2 is me

Weather Max 37 Min 16


For those who don't know, this is my grand dog Derek P Newton. I miss him so much. Please check him out on Instagram - he has over 1000 followers. 
Love you puppy head xxxxxxxxx


Well in typical Lesley style I finished my blog last night and decided to pop down to the corner convenience store for breakfast supplies. On the return journey I was either hit by lightning or shot with a cruise missile or maybe just tripped on the foot path.......it was hard to tell. All I know is that that footpath was approaching my head at warp speed and the only thing I could stop it with was my face. Knocked me quite senseless........instant black eye....scratched glasses.....bruised hand and grazed knee followed immediately by terminal embarrassment. 
Its actually worse than this at the moment.
What a bloody wacker!

I've left LA now and am sitting in a King Size bed in an Anaheim Hotel enjoying a rest day. After my misadventure last night I stayed awake all night just in case I had concussion so, after finally getting over my jet lag and restoring a normal sleep pattern I've managed to stuff it up again. Ah Well. I'm not doing Disneyland etc while I'm here as I have done so a few times now and I would rather spend the money on things unseen as I travel around.

My main purpose for being in Anaheim is to meet up with Jo and her family. We have been internet friends for quite a few years now and we will finally meet in person. They live in Stafford UK and are going to be here on holiday. Very much looking forward to it. At least I won't need to have a rose in my teeth so they recognise me.......my shiner will take care of that!!

Today I booked 4 days in Monterey. On my 2011 odyssey I listed Monterey as my favourite USA town so I am looking forward to spending a bit more time there and to see whether  this still applies. I don't really know how I'm going to get there yet but I will explore my options tomorrow. From Monterey I will be heading to San Francisco. I'll then work my way north till I get to Seattle Washington and then fly to Little Rock Arkansas for some long awaited Kae & Ang time. Get that fire pit ready guys xxxxx

Dearly Departed

Weather Max 33 Min 17

Another very warm but beautiful day in Los Angeles....too hot to walk for miles so I opted to go on an air conditioned bus tour called Dearly Departed Tours. I did enjoy this and met some really nice people from all over. I Uberred to the pick up point with a lovely man called Joey - hey Joey :)....I hope you found your way to this blog.

Basically the tour consisted of driving all through LA seeing the places where famous people were killed, suicided or just kicked the bucket. Sounds a bit gory but my dark side enjoyed it.

At one spot the tour guide asked if anyone knew the name of the hooker that Hugh Grant got caught with and I said Divine Brown. He went on to say she usually charged $40 but because she recognised Hugh Grant she charged $80.  He and all the people on the bus, totally lost it when I said I would have done it for $50. He's going to use that on future tours lol






The last stop...for some


Marilyn's stone has a pink tinge because so many
people have kissed 
the stone. When it gets
cleaned the lipstick gets absorbed by the
stone.



Cant rotate this - just lie down to read this :)


It had cooled down by the time we got back to base so I started to walk back up Sunset Bvd. It was nearly 4 pm and I hadn't had lunch yet so called into Denny's for late lunch/early dinner


Good coffee



This was bell peppers, potato, mushrooms, cheese, egg and bacon and was yumbo.  By the time the waitress finally returned to my table I had talked myself out of the
ice cream with chocolate sauce and nuts.........damn it!!

Hmmm........will try this next

This is just around the corner from my hotel
and there are clean cut young people hovering

on the corners trying to capture people and 
steer them into the building. No Tom Cruise.

An interesting thing - the Capitol Records Building has a flashing red light on its roof as do many tall buildings. However instead of just a regular blink this building flashes HOLLYWOOD in morse code.



Capitol Records
This building below is the one from the end of Pretty Woman when Richard  Gere was in the limo with his flowers and umbrella and Julia Roberts was hanging out the top window,.

Pretty Woman House



Having trouble charging my Macbook. By the the time I insert the US adapter an the plug it keeps falling out of the wall lol. Desperate measures were needed.


Where there's a will there's a way

I have an AC/DC t shirt and wherever I go people come up and say "Hey...I like your T shirt". I wish I had brought a crate load with me lol.

Monday 17 October 2016

What a good day....!!

Weather Max 25 Min 15

Last night I took 1/2 a pill  to try to reboot my body clock and it started to work - until him next door turned his TV up VERY loud.  He had it on till 11:30 so it was about midnight when I fell asleep. Next thing I knew it was 9:45 am and the cleaner was knocking on the door and woke me up!!

I have felt really good today so I think I'm finally on West Coast time :)

I needed to find an Apple Store because I've been having some issues getting my photos from my phone to my Macbook. Was skimming through some photos from yesterday at The Grove and I noticed a building with a great big Apple logo on it. Like I really needed another excuse to go back there - it is wonderful. I found the store and the young bloke sorted me out and I was good to go. We'll see how it goes tonight.

I was Facebooking with Sarah L who also loves The Grove and the adjoining Farmers Markets and she recommended lunch at The Banana Leaf and in particular a satay noodle dish with an egg on it. I located the place and gave it a try......it was SO GOOD! I have been carrying a little collapsible bowl in my handbag as I've been making my lunch the main meal of the day and the servings are so big I take the rest home for dinner. Today there was nothing left for dinner!! A young couple and then another person came to my table to ask what it was I ordered because it looked so good and they ordered it too. Thank for the tip  Sarah xx





This was just wonderful!

Weather wise it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Whoever or whatever your greater power is.....thank them for me.......they got it just right  ......warm but not hot.....a light zephyr of a breeze.....and my reset body clock made it PERFECT. I felt exceptionally happy all day. Having said that there are "la nina winds" coming in tonight - I'm not sure what that means but the weather girl seems quite upset about it and it will be 96F tomorrow and 100F Thursday. 

After lunch I headed for the La Brea Tarpits which is one of the worlds most famous fossil localities.
There is this big bubbling pool of tar and they have dug up Ice Age BIG SCARY mammals and BIGGER SCARY mammoths and dire wolfs from 15000 years ago. Lots of fossils - other than me - and really quite fascinating. I highly recommend it too all LA visitors. I was a bit embarrassed when the Tour Guide asked each us in the group where we first learned of the La Brea Tarpits and I said Raj and Howard went there in the Big Bang Theory lol.
Great place to visit


They all seem a bit anorexic

Next to the Tarpits is the LA County Museum Of Art. I saw some great stuff and some weird stuff. Lots of Picasso - I liked him. Too much Matisse - his looked like a kid could do it. I bet he coloured outside of the lines too :( 
I went up the biggest escalator I've ever been on and the view from the top was quite spectacular.  I had a drink and snack on the terrace of the cafe and watched this little squirrel  playing on the grass - so cute.


Little squirrel friend

Snack time!
Just about got a nosebleed going up this escalator
I could see the Hollywood sign from here but
 too hard to see in this shot

I've certainly been taking advantage of my new Aged pensioner status and getting lots of discounts.

Seeing as I was a guts at lunch and ate everything in sight I settled for the Wendy's next door to the motel and had what turned out to be an incredibly tasty BBQ chicken and bacon salad.




I'm worn out but happy after a great day out :)




Sunday 16 October 2016

♫♫♫ It never rains in southern California ♫♫♫....Oh yes it does!!

Weather Max 22 Min 14

I did a post in Dec 2011 with the above heading. I was in a Laundromat on Melrose Ave and that song was playing over the PA system.......and it was pouring with rain outside. hmmm.  Los Angeles has been in drought for several years now and today it rained. They may have to get me back more often as I am obviously the Queen of Soggy Skies . The weather is a bit CRAZY - its been quite warm this afternoon then cold outside now but its going to be 100F on Thursday.....crazy Autumn.

Today I was in the studio audience for 2 tapings of the Dr Phil show. I enjoyed the shows but there was A LOT of waiting around and after only 4 hours sleep - 2 am till 6 am - I was so tired I nearly dozed off and caught myself just before the zzzzzz's started. How embarrassing if I snored...or fell off my chair. HA! It's obvious the jet lag is still holding on to me so tonight I'll take a pill and try and get back into the correct  time zone.

After Dr Phil I went to The Grove shopping centre. Trendy place for the Stars but I made a bee line for the Cheesecake Factory. The meals are so big I settled for appetisers and still took enough home for dinner.

GREAT bread!!

12 buffalo wings - enough for 2 meals


Not much to blog tonight due to The Dr Phil show taking up so much of the day. Hopefully after a good nights sleep my body clock will have reset and I can get out and about again.