New addition to the road-trip family!

We woke surprisingly up to sunshine on Thursday. Unfortunately we didn't stay to enjoy it from the beach in Cambria since we were eager to hit the road again and be at LAX (LA International Airport) by 4 PMish to pick up another colleague.

I really enjoyed driving the car yesterday and took the morning shift behind the wheel (which meant Bjorne had to take the afternoon shift in the LA traffic that I didn't want to take). I couldn't enjoy the whole morning drive since I was stubborn and didn't want to get gas right away which meant that the low on gas indicator was turned on which freaked me out a little bit. Bjorne noticed my fear of running out of gas when I was going really slowly uphill to use less gas and not using any gas going downhill. His attempts to make me less worried (he wasn't worried at all) didn't work. I thought we were way overdue when we finally found Anita's Gas Station but we could probably gone quite a bit further without running out of gas.




Don't worry, the car is not moving!



Oil platforms along the coast that followed us all the way to Santa Barbara.



I like railways...



Highway 1, going south!



If we saw a lot of coast yesterday, today was the flat field day! I don't really know what the guy is doing in this picture.



This is how happy I am driving a Canadian coloured cabriolet.



Today's saviour!

Our first real stop for the day was in Santa Barbara where we both had lunch at Taco Bell (my first time ever even though I've seen it so many times in Canada) and went swimming in the Pacific Ocean (Bjorne's first time).




Before going in. We weren't this happy afterwards.



Also a before picture.



This one too.

We were not that impressed by the beach or the swim though. Getting out to a bit deeper water we had to go through water filled with circulating sand and sea weeds. And the view out over the ocean included several oil platforms which didn't really improve the experience. The only positive memory really was the cool rock I found that now is increasing the weight of my suitcase.

Bjorne took over the wheel from Santa Barbara and even though it felt like we had plenty of time at first and could have made more stops along the way we went straight to LAX. We hit LA traffic around 3 PM and our plan to pass by our hotel before the airport was thrown out.

When we finally arrived at LAX it took us another 15 minutes at least to find the right terminal. I can't remember how many times we drove around the circle for the different terminals. And when we finally found the one we thought it would be we still not sure it was the right one. I went inside to check while Bjorne was supposed to have done another loop but instead he waited for me in the drop off zone. I returned to the drop off zone just when Bjorne was being forced out of the zone (he never drove the loop but instead waited for me in he no parking zone). We hope that we didn't get a ticket since I actually jumped into the car just at the right moment. Now we knew which terminal but still had to solve the parking dilemma since we didn't want to keep doing loops in the crazy airport traffic. After another loop or two we managed to find an entrance to a parking garage just when we were in the right line at the right moment. By then we were so tired of driving around at the airport that we were ready to pay the $30 that we at first thought the parking would be. It turned out to be way less than that luckily.

As we could have expected we were not really in any hurry at all. The immigration procedure takes a while so even though we we came into the airport after landing we still had to wait more than a hour before Mr. M arrived (apparently I give the Swedes I mention in this blog nicknames...).




Our new addition didn't enjoy the cold backseat that much! I guess he thought it would be warm in California :)

It was nice that the hotel was situated close to the airport since we had gotten enough of slow moving traffic for the day.

We settled in really quickly and headed out for dinner and hopefully another sunset from a beach. We managed way better with the dinner than with the sunset at least if we compare it to the sunset Bjorne and I enjoyed the day before in Cambria. We just made it to Manhattan Beach when the sun set behind a hill. We got to the the post sunset beautiful sky at least as well as a pier and many many volleyball nets along the beach.




Sunset from Manhattan Beach.



The guys hanging out on the pier.



Picture of me taking a picture.



And the picture I took.

Since we had a new jet-lagged person with us that was what we did outside the hotel in LA that day. While Mr. M went to bed Bjorne and I went out to the hotel's outdoor swimming pool and jacuzzi. After a few water jumping pictures and relaxation we decided that it still wasn't late enough to go to bed. We then went to the bar and ordered some wine to go (that we put up on the wrong room, we managed to make it right the next day) and relaxed some more on a balcony overlooking the pool area. Another nice ending to a nice day even though I guess yesterday's hotel on the beach and the sunset view from there beats a a hotel evening by a highway.



The pool was better than the beach in Santa Barbara.



Great jumping picture from Bjorne, especially the eye expression.



Wine on the balcony, a nice ending to a long day.