Los Angeles, CA again

Day 41 - Wednesday 21/7/10

It was our last day which was a bittersweet feeling. It had been a long trip and we were all ready to go home but we also didn't want it to end! We started the morning with breakfast in a cafe in the Third St Promenade. We then went back to our hotel to pack up and check out. The Cal Mar Suites was just like the apartment block in Melrose Place!

Once the car was all packed up we headed down to Santa Monica Pier and hit the end of Route 66.

The kids wished they were Big

and we had fun on the rides.

Views from the top of the Ferris Wheel

We had one final celebrity sighting for the trip. Liev Schrieber and his two boys were on the ferris wheel with us!

After riding the rollercoaster and ferris wheel we decided to head off.

Not sure what this was about, but we had to pretend it was there just for us!

We drove down to Venice Beach but couldn't find a parking spot and didn't feel particularly safe so we turned around and drove up to have a look at Malibu

and then headed to The Grove. We had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and then bought a few souvenirs at the Farmer's Market.

From there we headed over to Rodeo Drive

and then drove over to Toluca Lake to check out a few more star's homes.

Demi Lovato's house

Miley Cyrus's front gate

Peter Facinelli and Jennie Garth's house

Ashley Tisdale's house

Ashley Tisdale's dog!

Vanessa Hudgens' house

Unfortunately it was then time for us to head to LAX to catch our flight home. We dropped off the car at the Dollar depot and caught the bus to the terminal. Check in and security went smoothly and then we hung out in the Qantas Club lounge for an hour or so before boarding. Once on board there was a delay as a plane that was taxiing behind us broke down so we couldn't back out. We all fell asleep so I'm not sure how long we sat there before finally taking off. The delay meant that we only had an hour to get our connecting  flight in Melbourne and of course we were pulled over by Customs for a full search!! We finally got through and luckily the domestic terminal was just a short walk next door. We made our flight with minutes to spare and settled in for the final leg of our journey.

We arrived home in Perth exhausted but happy to have had such a wonderful holiday.

The End.

San Francisco - Los Angeles

Day 40 - Tuesday 20/7/10

Alex was still not well but he had to get up and get moving as we were driving to Los Angeles today. Around 6am he went to pick up the hire car while I packed and got the kids organised. We got the van all packed up and hit the road around 7.30am. First stop was Lombard St which we had only seen from a distance on the tram tour the day before.

We then drove through San Francisco towards the coast, stopping at Louis' Diner for breakfast. This was a gorgeous family owned diner set on a hilltop looking out to the Pacific Ocean.

 We had a huge breakfast and then set off down Highway 1 towards L.A.

It was a longer drive then we had anticipated so we didn't get to stop at too many places along the way as we had to keep travelling. We had a nice lunch at the London Bridge Pub in Monterey and were enjoying the views of Big Sur before Sammy got carsick and started throwing up. We had to pull over several times for him to vomit on the side of the road!

We pulled into Santa Barbara for dinner and struggled to find somewhere to eat as everywhere had huge wait times. We finally found a Denny's and experienced some of the worst service of the entire trip. It took nearly 45 minutes for our food to arrive which was 45 minutes that we couldn't afford. It was dark by the time we left and we were all exhausted but we still had a couple of hours to go. We finally arrived at the Cal Mar Suites in Santa Monica around 9.30pm and gratefully fell into bed.

San Francisco, CA - Day 2

Day 39 - Monday 19/7/10

Harry and I set off for an early walk in search of breakfast. We picked up McDonald's and took it back to the room where the others were slowly waking up. Around 9.15am we walked down to Pier 33 for our 10am  Alcatraz Tour. Luckily I had pre-booked tickets as they were sold out for weeks and hoardes of people were being turned away.

We stayed inside on the ferry in an attempt to stay warm as the wind was quite biting. On arrival at Alcatraz we listened to a spiel from a tour guide before beginning the climb to the top of the prison to start the tour. The audio tour was really well done and we all really enjoyed it.

The kids started to get bored after an hour, so we decided to cut the tour short and hop on the ferry back to the mainland.

When we arrived at Pier 33, we walked back up to Fisherman's Wharf and the Aquarium of the Bay

where we spent an enjoyable hour checking out the sea life. The kids particularly enjoyed the interactive areas.

After the aquarium we wandered down to Pier 39 to check out the sea lions

and then had a yummy lunch at Bubba Gump's

where we had a great view of Alcatraz.

We stopped to buy warm jackets for everyone and then let the boys play on this giant macaroni for awhile

before hopping on our city tram tour. The tour is a hop on/hop off but we ended up on the last one of the day so we could only do it as a round trip. It was still a lot of fun though, especially when we were going up and down the really steep hills! Alex was really feeling unwell by that stage and ended up falling asleep on the tram.

Some gorgeous San Franciso architecture

We were returned to Fisherman's Wharf and went back to the hotel for a rest. Alex promptly passed out so Emily and I left the boys watching tv while we went and did some shoe shopping. Alex was still sleeping when we got back so the kids and I left him to rest and walked down to Pier 39

where we had dinner at Wipeout and then checked out the Spongebob Squarepants 4D movie which turned out to be the same one that we saw at Madame Tussaud's in New York! We then discovered Magowan's Infinite Mirror Maze and had a blast going through it over and over again! After some final souvenir shopping we walked back to the hotel and went to bed.