Palm Springs and Joshua National Park

After spending the last couple of weeks lazing around in San Diego, we decided to head inland and north a bit to Palm Springs. It’s a mid-size town a couple of hours east of LA (right on the San Andreas fault line), with a reputation for being a bit of a retirement community for wealthy Californians. It was much hotter than the coast, being in the Colorado Desert, and surrounded by colossal wind-farms, with thousands of turbines.

We had decided to go to Palm Springs as it’s only about forty minutes away from Joshua National Park, which we wanted to hike. The park covers an area where the Mohave desert meets the Colorado desert and, although you wouldn’t exactly call it lush, compared to the other deserts we’ve been in there was a lot of plant and wildlife. Plenty of snakes too – I came dangerously close to treading on a big old rattlesnake and several other unidentified varieties over the course of two days…there were also big lizards, around ten inches long, sunbathing on the rocks.

The weird thing about the park was that although it’s basically just a big wilderness area, the plants and rocks seem to arrange themselves very artfully and the whole place looks very purposefully ordered, like a giant rockery that someone’s planted in to display in a garden centre. Also because of the time of year, all of the plants and cactuses were flowering, so there were lots of beautiful colours.

We also took a ride up into the mountains surrounding the desert on the (apparently) biggest cable-car on earth, which holds eighty people in each car. The floor of the thing rotates around three hundred and sixty degrees as it climbs 8,000 ft, so you get a great view to accompany the nausea. Stupidly we went up in our shorts and flip-flops – not thinking that it might be a little bit colder at the top – and then had to walk round in the snow with cold toes.

After getting frustrated lugging around my big SLR camera for the last few months, and annoyed with the poor quality of Tracy’s camera, I’ve traded the whole lot in for a top-end compact (a Canon G10 for the camera nerds out there), which has been brilliant so far, and it’s made a real difference to the amount of crap that I have to carry around.

Route 1 – Big Sur to San Diego

After leaving Montana Del Oro state park with a huge hangover we decided to forgo camping and indulge in some hotel luxury. We had read about a small town called ‘Solvang’ in our guide book which was apparently established by Danish settlers hoping to bring a bit of home to the USA. That didn’t prepare us for the full on Danish-Fest that we were to experience! The town was strange mish-mash of Nordic and Bavarian clichés – the houses were painted in pretty pastel colours, there were windmills everywhere and the waiters and waitresses wore lederhosen. It was as if we had landed a part in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! We picked a pretty authentic looking restaurant for brunch and stuffed ourselves with Danish sausage and pancakes– it was just what we needed after the evening’s drinking and we immediately began to feel better.

Our hotel in Solvang was pretty swanky; having scoured the town for a non-existent budget option we decided to bite the bullet and enjoy the free wine, cheese and hot tub at the Hadsten House (sans the wine in my case, I’m not a big believer in hair-of-the-dog!). It was nice to have a proper bed after a few nights of camping and we felt much better the next morning.

Our next stop was Santa Barbara, where we stayed in the local traveller’s hostel. The town was pretty but not quite what we expected given its reputation as a favoured haunt of the rich and famous. We continued to make our way South via route 1, the scenery not quite as dramatic as further north but still beautiful. We spent the next few nights back in the tent at Sycamore Canyon, Point Magu, part of the Santa Monica Mountains. It was a very windy campsite and (much to our annoyance, having spent so much time in near isolation) we had quite a few neighbours. It was Spring Break time and a few groups of college kids had decided to camp as well. We did some hiking in the hills in what was the first day of real blistering heat we had experienced. The highlight of the three days however was seeing a huge pod of dolphins jumping and playing just fifty metres or so off shore. It was our last camping expedition and putting away the tent on our morning of departure was pretty sad.

Route 1 from there on wound its way along the coast of what the locals refer to as So-Cal (Southern California). The coast is pretty much dominated by the sprawling cities of Los Angeles and San Diego with a spattering of small seaside towns in between. We stayed four nights in Los Angeles, although its hard to actually describe what exactly ‘Los Angeles’ itself entails. The label seems to encompass lots of smaller cities or towns bound together by huge cumbersome freeways nearly always jammed to a standstill with traffic. We passed through Malibu, mooched along Venice Beach, went shopping in Burbank and drove longingly around Beverly Hills. Our favourite stop however was Griffith Park where we jogged around the golf course in relative peace and quiet away from the bustle of the city, even then we were sometimes just a few yards from the 16-lane freeway! Our hotel was in China Town, in downtown LA and we had one of the biggest and best Chinese meals I’ve ever had – the salty squid being my favourite dish!

One of the main highlights of LA was going to Universal Studios. We decided to treat ourselves to ‘front of line passes’ which meant we didn’t have to queue for any of the rides. I felt a bit bad the first time I went swanning past a group of 8 year old kids who had been queuing for over forty minutes for the new Simpson’s ride but after the first go Sam and I ran passed them without a second glance shouting “again, again”, it was brilliant! We had such a good day out and felt like we were ten again.

View Full Album

After LA we found the relative quite of San Clemente, a small coastal town where we lazed on the beach and watched the surfers. We then hit San Diego a few days later where we found a great value hotel with pool and fitness centre, we spent most of our days lazing around soaking up the sun. A welcome break having been on the road for so long. We had a couple of excursions out to Mission Beach, a beautiful expanse of coast where it seems most Southern Californian residents come to run, cycle, surf and swim. Here everyone was tanned, toned, healthy and happy, a lifestyle that seemed so appealing, having spent eight months living with the pasty inhabitants of northern England (only joking, NDA guys!). We also made a trip out to San Diego Zoo, where they have a reputation for excellent animal welfare, conservation and breeding programmes. It was a fantastic experience, the panda’s and polar bears being our favourites.

The forecast for the next couple of weeks was for great weather and we decided to stay a while whilst we made plans for the next leg of our trip. We found a small rental apartment with a great pool which we have rarely left the last few days! We’ve managed to get into a bit of a routine, cooking proper food, reading our books and not doing much else…..hmmmm this is the life!

Route 1 - San Francisco to Big Sur

Route 1 (or Pacific Coast Highway as it is otherwise known) snakes its way down the western coast of the US. We had joined it just north of San Francisco and planned to drive all the way down to San Diego, the southernmost city on the west coast. Route 1 passes through some of the most dramatic and undeveloped coastal scenery the western states has to offer as well as plenty of coastal towns and cities. It was the perfect route to make the most of our rented convertible!

Our first stop was Monterey, a pleasant little town with a friendly 'sea-side' air to it. The local specialty is clam-chowder, and the local restaurateurs hand out free samples as you walk along the main pier, so we got to try about ten different varieties, my favourite being spiced with cognac - yum! Monterey has a big scuba community, and also one of the biggest underwater-photography specialist shops in the states, so Sam had plenty to occupy him for an afternoon! It is also famous for its aquarium, which is one of the most impressive I’ve seen – my favourites were the sea otters that float upside-down and eat food off their tummies!

We were keen to try out the new camping gear so booked three nights in the town park where camping is permitted. Camping in America is a very different experience to camping in the UK. You can have a camp fire for starters - which Sam thought was just brilliant! There is also a lot more wildlife - we saw Raccoons rummaging through our trash, a bob-cat, a coyote and hundreds of funny gopher-things.

After Monterey we carried on down the coast through what is known as '17 mile drive', a piece of road so posh you have to pay nearly $10 to drive down it. It was actually worth the money as it passed through fantastic coastline with beautiful pristine beaches and lined by huge gated mansions that were infuriatingly just out of sight behind their manicured lawns and carefully placed trees. We decided that this was the place for us when we make our millions!

On the other side of 17 mile drive was 'Carmel', another well-to-do town with a reputation for snootiness. The locals aren't even allowed to have mail boxes at the end of their drives for fear it brings down the look of the neighbourhood, neither do any of the houses have numbers – they’re all named.

Next stop was 'Big Sur' (meaning The Big South) a stretch of the coast with amazing scenery, much of it just recovering from the big California forest fires a few years ago. The landscape is beautiful but harsh meaning there is very little development - just what we liked! We stayed at a few campsites along the way, amongst the red woods and overlooking the sea. We had a slight altercation at one site where we mistakenly set up camp on a reserved site. The camp host (whose fault it was) was a burned-out hippie living in a trailer who didn't really seem to be able to cope with the situation, and didn’t take kindly to us disturbing his equilibrium. When we asked him to return the fees we had already deposited into his ‘payment tube’ at the entrance to the park, he spoke the now legendary words "I don't open the tube every ten minutes maaaaaan."

View Full Album

We took a break from Camping in Cambria where we found a great bargain hotel with a lovely suite and pool for just $60 a night. We ended up staying 3 nights and spent most of our days lounging by the pool doing not much at all. It was nice to be off the road for while and we decided to try and take things a little more slowly from now on.

We had been making the most of our trunk full of wine as we made our way down the coast and were running low after a few days so decided to stop off at Paso Robles another renowned wine making region - we found another few tasty delights and I discovered a taste for Port!

We set up camp that night in Montana del Oro state park, a remote area with great hikes and coastal walks. We got talking to a really nice guy called Ken who joined us for a drink after dinner. We managed to make our way through our remaining reserves as well as a whole bottle of port…it was a great evening, but the morning after wasn't so much fun. Suffice it to say that was the end of our wine tasting for the next few days.