April 2014
Awakening early on the morning after Coachella, we packed up our tent, mattresses and camping gear, and loaded everything back into our hire car. The drive out from the campground was slow, but eventually we stopped for some Starbucks for lunch and coffee, and hit the road to San Diego, heading to the USA Hostel on Fifth and G Streets. I found the street names downtown quite unique, numbers and letters. We found a carpark and headed to the hostel to drop our bags - a very colourful and interesting hostel. After settling we decided to head downtown for a bit of an explore. Locking our door, a friend of mine I made in Vancouver was doing the same on the opposite side, Kaz. Coincidence is a funny thing. After a quick catch up, we made plans for Kaz to join us for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory, and we went for an adventure.
Dinner for great and we ventured to a few bars downtown, before calling it an early night still recovering from Coachella. Waking up the next morning we headed back to the HI in Santa Monica, via Huntington Beach for lunch home of The Offspring.
Rolling back to the car rental place, we paid our bills and hopped into a taxi, heading back to the HI Santa Monica. Still exhausted and tired from the road trip, we went for a stroll for sunset and popped into a few bars for a few final drinks before heading back to the hostel as the lads were off early to South America and I was heading north back to Canada via San Francisco, Portland and Seattle (the latter two I would make on a trip much later on).
I waved bye to the boys in the morning as they departed and I stayed on for one more night to check out Hollywood, something I've always wanted to see. I decided to take it easy and book a tour for $50 which took us from the hostel to Beverly Hills, the Hollywood sign and to Hollywood Boulevard. It took a while, and I was almost late for the bus back, but I found the Nicolas Cage star!
A stunning sunset on the beach to end a wonderful last day in Los Angeles. Quite a spontaneous adventure this trip was and it was a lot of fun. Not only being able to drive through the US for the first time, I was able to visit some iconic spots I had dreamed about since I was kid looking at my Mum's photos in the old photo albums she would pull down for me from the wardrobe. I jumped onto a hostel pub crawl and had a pretty late night. After sunset, I awoke early the next morning a little dusty but ready to catch my shuttle to San Francisco to explore the famous city and to catch up with my mate Dan who I met in New York 6 months prior.