27 to 29 May Los Angeles - Brisbane

Slept in then up to sort out our luggage for the international flight home.  WE are both not looking forward to shoe-horning ourselves into economy seats, but then, dems da breaks.

We left our bags with the hotel concierge and got a lift to the Beverly Centre in the hotel's courtesy car.  We had a quick breaky of French Crepes then walked towards Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive.  It was quite a nice walk and we saw a lot of nice palm-tree-lined roads.  There was a mix of nice residences and some fairly 'tired' residences. We got to the Rodeo Drive area and looked at all the shops.

The last time we were here it was at night and we only had about 20 minutes on the tour.  This time we had a good walk around.  We even went into the Wiltshire (where Pretty Woman was filmed).  It was very glamorous.  We also used the 'facilities' (rest rooms), just because LOL).

WE also saw a Bugatti Veyron, black  yellow parked in front of a shop on Rodeo Drive.  It is the shop owner's car.  He obviously does very well thank you, seeing as the car is about 1 million dollars’ worth.

We also saw a Austin Martin Vanquish.  We noticed that every other car (in this area) is either a Ferrari, Maserati, BMW etc.

Having had a good look around at Rodeo Drive (and satisfying Ros's window-shopping sense LOL) we started to head back to the hotel.  We stopped at a little 1950s styled diner and had a nice lunch.  The diner served up typical 1950s burgers etc and it was really quite nice.

Again more palm tree lined roads and we followed Santa Monica Blvd, walking in the Beverly Hills City park, which was quite pretty.  We also passed the Beverly Hills Police Station.

On our way back we were going passed a Bentley & Rolls Royce sales and service centre when we ran into this bloke said his name was Russell Brand.  He was talking to a lady and his (we guessed) assistant.  He insisted on us having his picture taken with us.  Nah actually we noticed who he was & we went up to him and had a quick 2 minute chat with him.  He was quite a nice and funny guy and obliged us by having a photo taken with us.... COOL :).

We carried on back to the hotel and on getting back, gladly put our feet up beside the pool and had some cool drinks.  After lazing here for a while, we headed out to find a spot for a snack for dinner.  We ended up at Mel's Drive In Diner (where they were shooting the tv show or something last night).  We had some very tasty snacks and a really good chat with the manager, who claimed to have worked in a lot of different places, all of them along Sunset Blvd.  Come 7pm, we headed back to the hotel to get our things and wait for our pick up ride to the airport.  Again we had the 'town-car' arranged, so it was another nice, comfy quick trip to the airport.

We checked in and started our wait in the departure lounge (No. 41).  Found that our flight had been delayed due to the late arrival of our incoming plane. Finally boarded at 1.15am and departed at 2.

Loong trip home. Lost a day over the date line, so into Brisbane on Friday morning. Tired, stiff and jet lagged. Back to Mick and Matilda’s for a relaxing weekend –then back to Hobart Sunday and work on Monday.

We had a great time – every bit as memorable as our 2011 Amazing American Adventure!

26 May Kent (Seattle) - Los Angeles

Up early to finish packing up our stuff, then off to the storage yard (Sharon's RV Storage) where we started this epic adventure.  We got to Sharron's and got the new cover for the RV.  Sharon asked us to move the RV to another spot as the spot we had taken the ole girl from was taken by a caravan.  Ros set about finalising the packing & Steve started unrolling the new cover. We both ended up working on the tarp as it had been wrapped up inside out & took a little while to work out.  We got the rest of the packing up done, which consists of winterising the water systems, adding fuel additives (for storage), disconnecting batteries & setting up solar panels etc.  After all this we were starting to get short on time for the shuttle pickup and we still had to finish off tying down the cover, but we got it all done.  Tying down means throwing ropes over the cover in a few places and crawling under the RV to get the ropes right around.  Steve was glad of the site change as the other site had a few small blackberry plants he'd have had to crawl through to get the ropes around.  All done and the shuttle was there.  We locked her up, said our farewells to the ole girl and set off to the airport (SEATAC).

We got there in plenty of time and boarded.  2 hours & 30 minutes later we landed in LA international airport (LAX).  We had arranged a town car to pick us up (a bit of a treat and comfort).  The town car turned out to be an extended Lincoln and very comfortable indeed.  It was also a much quicker trip than the shuttle due to not dropping of others.  The driver gave us some tips on places to go and look at.  We got dropped off at  our accommodation, the Grafton on Sunset Boulevard and it turned out to be a great choice, not only for the accommodation but also being right in the centre of West Hollywood and all of its attractions.  We checked in and dropped off our luggage.  We then went out for a walk to see where we were and stretch our legs.

We have a night here and then all day tomorrow as our flight home doesn’t leave until 12:15am (such a wonderful time to be at an airport... NOT :))

On our walk we found a great sushi restaurant and had dinner there. It overlooked Sunset Blvd and we had some great views over the LA city skyline. 

Afterwards we went for a short walk to work off dinner and found ourselves in a well to do area.  The security signs stated that security response would be armed.  On Sunset Boulevard we found that a TV cooking show of some sort was being filmed at Mel's Drive in Diner.  Trucks, generators, sound & camera equipment was everywhere.