We woke up in between mountains somewhere west of LA. We got back in the car & headed west towards the coast of California. We just took a small windy road we saw marked in the road atlas & it was one of the most beautiful drives ever. We literally just drove through the mountains, with 20mph curves, 8% inclines, and no one around. A good portion of the forest at the western most part of our drive was burnt to a crisp.
Something fun we have done on this trip is only use the road atlas. It forces is to improve our navigation skills & also helps you see more interesting scenery that you would not otherwise find. That's probably been another favorite part of the trip... Just picking a random road, and heading the general direction we needed to go & enjoying wherever it would take us.
Santa Barbara: we saw the Pacific Ocean!!!!, drove along California highway 1, stopped & sat at the beach for awhile, wandered around the city, and sampled local beer. We begrudgingly got in the car & made our way south to LA.
(Santa Barbara's fancy shopping!)
(So happy to be in the sun!!!)
(Obsessed with Palm trees!!!)
The traffic sucked south of Santa Barbara heading in to LA. We didn't get to LA until maybe 7 or 8. We drove in circles trying to find the hostel. And then we drove around more trying to find parking. It was gnarly. Eventually, we finally made it out to the streets of LA & found that the hostel was in the downtown section of LA, with all of the chain stores & restaurants. Which is alright, I guess. But we kind of hoped for something more intimate & smaller , maybe in a neighborhood. We needed dinner suggestions. Where do you find cool, nice people when you are in a strange city? REI & trader joes. Both of those types of people are always so nice & will tell you where to find the towns favorite cafe or hole in the wall dinner place, or just talk to you. So we walked in to an REI & spent the next hour or so there & walked out with a tent & sleeping bag. From there we went and ate some sushi, and then walked a ways down to a neighborhood, where we thought they had a local brewery. Along the way we met Felicity, a local who told us all about LA. She was really talkative. And nice. We got a drink, hung out & talked & then walked back to the hostel.
(We pulled over to watch the sunset)
At this point we were pretty exhausted. We had been doing a ton of driving. It was somewhat early..: maybe 1030 or 11? We didn't want to go to bed, but we also didn't really want to stay out & try to figure out where to go next. As we entered the hostel, and gave ourselves a tour, we met a middle aged Carlos from Argentina, Romeo, a college student from Hong Kong, and Rodrico a young artistfrom Mexico City. Conversation started easily, and before we knew it, it was 4am and we were getting impromptu salsa lessons. Our conversation covered a very wide variety of topics... Language & cultural differences, geography, the purpose of life, dating, communication styles, and of course hearing a little of their life stories & what travels they have done. It was a light night but totally worth it. A funny moment was when Carlos was trying to compliment me and said "oh Courtney, you are a piece of cake!" Not exactly what he meant to say, but it was hilarious & we keep laughing at this phrase.
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