Grandstay Residential Suites - Oxnard

We got back on the bus at 7:45am for the penultimate time on our way for our last night in Carpinteria. To be honest its quite a while ago now as ive been pretty slack over the last month keeping the blog but we stopped off at a beach on the way at Santa Barbara for a few hours before getting into Carpinteria at 6pm. We had dinner in the bar all together and had some quiet drinks whilst reminiscing the past weeks events ...

... so it was time to go to the Getty Museum. This place is remarkable. I was first shocked by the Jurassic Park-style gondola ride we had to take just to get up to the museum from the parking lot. Of course, you can't do anything touristy without the proverbial non-English-speaking tour group. To me, the coolest thing about the museum was the architecture and the layout, not so ...

... great fun until the end and I would do it again. After resting a spell and having some lunch, we took a short walk to the top of the cliff. The views were spectacular. The rocky cliffs with the waves crashing beneath them was truly an awesome sight. The island vegetation was different than I had expected. There were few trees it was more of a desert island. There were cactus, some wildflowers and grass. There is much to do in this beautiful national ...

... and Shar. Bev has been busy washing, washing and washing. Too bad the Dryer hasn't been hooked up yet. We spent another day in San Francisco driving up some of the steepest city streets you would ever see, dining at the waterfront and a ferry trip to Alcatraz. A science museum in the hills overlooking the bay was another day trip enjoyed by the kids. I'm going to be pretty general with dates and places from ...

... the trash - after the huge wildfires that burned Malibu a few weeks prior people had just thrown things out because of smoke damage. Just walking around out there smelled like fire and smoke. We spent a little time there, and found out that the woman running the place is from El Salvador. She took our number and said she'd talk to her family down there and then call us later and tell us where to stay, what ...

... Hollywood and Beverly Hills, until we got bored and jealous of all the houses! Back to the main road we followed it through Bel Air etc to Santa Monica, were we took the coast road up through Malibu to Oxnard where our cheap motel room was waiting for us. The next morning we made the fairly short drive up to Santa Barbara, where we jumped onto a Whale Watching trip. It was fantastic! We saw hundreds of Dolphins, and quite a few Minke and Humpback ...

... arrow points south down a road that soon turns to sand and bends around a basalt outcropping to Zzyzx Springs, an old health resort started by a charismatic quack named Doc Springer in the early decades of the 1900s. A Los Angeles radio personality, Springer used the airwaves to drum up business, which, at the height of his career, was brisk. His resort might still be thriving today if he hadn't built his establishment on land he didn't own. Essentially a poacher ...

... station to catch our freak show bus. Well, it wasn't that bad, but it was very LA. The funniest character was a massively overweight chinese woman who was dancing to her CD player like she was in a MTV music video, whilst chatting to people about how she was a health instructor who had just lost 10 pounds. Isn't that a bit like a great white shark saying he's a vegetarian and who has just lost a tooth? She was bizzare. She was LA.

... and our 40' Monaco Dynasty Motorhome ready for the road. We also visited other friends, especially, Jeff and Linda and their family in Simi Valley. Terry even went fishing twice (with Jeff and his son, Jordan), both times providing some very good fish dinners! The only down side was the very cold weather. Remember, it doesn't get cold in Kihei, Maui, so we were freezing!! And the day that we started our journey, it was cold and raining, so we both caught colds.

... Ford F350 hire vehicle from near Sacramento to Los Angeles. Michael had arrived a week earlier and spent time with his friend Exter and family. Josh, Kate, Pete and Will arrived on Sunday morning December 4 flying in from Peru completing a nine week holiday there. So, the party of eight gathered at breakfast in the hotel and then set forth on our American five week tour together.