ZOQY

Day One Los Angeles, California

We collected our campervan from Escape Campervans in Los Angeles (4858 W Century Blvd, Inglewood, California) at 11am. After signing a few forms, and checking the van over, it was nearing noon. It was too late to get on the road, so we just headed to Santa Monica for a stroll on the beach and pier before returning to our hotel for an early night before our early start the next day. It was also good to get a feel for the van in L.A. traffic, and to see how well the sat nav worked, as it was the first time we’d ever used one. Conclusion, it worked well.

Day Two, the road to Paso Robles

We departed L.A. a little later than planned and motored to Paso Robles. I had arranged to meet a Facebook wine friend, and the idea was to arrive late morning, but instead we arrived at about 1.30pm.
Meeting Cel was a great start to our road trip.
Cel drove us to a couple of wineries for wine tasting, it was really good to get my palate back in action after a 10 month break in Asia.
The first winery was Zenaida Cellars. Of note was the dessert wine. Not heavy on sugar and with some nice fruit notes.
Next we visited Caliza Winery for a quick tasting.
Wine over for the day the three of us headed to Firestone Walker Brewing Company for a late lunch, and to sample a few of their beers. All pretty decent especially the Merkin. We explained what a Merkin was to Cel, she was not put off the beer, she asked the waitress if they sold it in bottles, but alas the answers was no. Takeaway Merkin being unavailable means it’s a good excuse for Cel to make a return visit.
We departed Paso Robles after Cel had very kindly given us 4 fresh eggs, so fresh in fact that we watched her go into the hen house to collect them. Cel also gave Laura a long sleeve top, and a couple of bottles of wine for the two of us to share.
We’d had a really lovely day, what a good start to our trip across America.
After leaving Cel we drove on to the town of Cambria, a very quaint little town. We stopped at an ATM to top up our cash reserves, and I visited a small grocery store to pick up a few much needed food items.
A few miles after Cambria we found a campsite for the night at Hearst San Simeon State park. It cost $20 to camp for the night. We parked up and unpacked our cooking gear. Our first home cooked meal on our road trip across America was pan seared asparagus with garlic, topped with goats cheese with fennel pollen and lavender (Cypress Grove Chèvre – Purple Haze). It was delicious. We washed it down with a glass or two of Laura’s Vineyard 2006 Zinfandel from Derby Wine Estates of Paso Robles, a wine kindly donated by Cel. To round off the evening I fired up a rum flavoured Royal Hawaiian Cigar that I’d purchased in Hawaii.
Our first day on the road was a perfect day.

Day Three

Our first proper touristy jaunt of our trip was a visit to Hearst Castle (blog post HERE). Then it was a short drive along the coast to a beach that was covered in Elephant Seals (blog post HERE).
We then carried on along the coast road. Next stop was for lunch at River Inn in Big Sur. A couple of sandwiches refuelled us. Pressing on along the coast we stopped at a lay-by to watch a Whale out at sea. What a wonderful sight. Then we pressed on again. Needing fuel for the van we stopped at a diner/gas station but they did not accept cash and our British bank card was rejected by the machine. A little worried about running out of gas, I kept the speed down and crossed my fingers. The fuel warning light came on, but it was only 15 miles to go for gas. Thankfully we made it to a petrol station, vans tank full, our next stop was Carmel and a visit to the grocery store that Clint Eastwood uses, well I assume he uses Safeway, but we did not spot him wandering the aisles looking for discounted items.
Wanting to get a bit more distance under our belts we motored on the Monterey.
We found a camp site but there wasn’t any staff around. A German lady asked if I needed help and informed me that just camping in the van would be $60-80 per night. She and her family where paying $120 for an RV with full hookup.
Not liking that price very much we went just along the road to a Best Western where we paid $82 with tax for a massive room which also included breakfast, free WiFi etc.

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We arrived at the Rainbow Hotel + Casino, in West Wendover, Nevada exhausted after a days driving.
I popped in and asked the room rates, they were acceptable. We booked to stay one night.

Our room was quite a long way from the hotel entrance and reception. We had to walk through the casino gaming room to the East wing to reach our room.
Our room was large, it had two queen-size beds, which had thick comfortable mattresses.
The room decor was very eighties, one wall was entirely covered in smoked glass mirrors.

The room was well furnished, apart from the two beds there was a desk/vanity unit with a chair, a chest of drawers, one bedside unit between the beds, and an armchair. A large flatscreen wall-mounted TV had several free channels, and lots of pay per view channels.

The sink was not in the bathroom it was in the bedroom, over which was a large mirror lit by five overhead lights. There were tissues, a filter coffee machine, and a hairdryer by the sink. There was also an iron and ironing board in the room.

The bathroom was small. The bath was the usual small American size bath over which was the shower.
We had plenty of towels, and there was soap and shampoo.

Free WiFi was available in our room at the Rainbow Hotel + Casino, in West Wendover, Nevada. It was a good choice for us, and it was reasonably priced.

Rainbow Hotel + Casino
1045 Wendover Boulevard,
Wendover, NV 89883
1-800-217-0049

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We stayed overnight at the Keno Motel, in Reno, Nevada.
It was our first experience of a typical American budget motel.

Our room was up on the second level overlooking the parking spaces.
The room was a good size, with a double bed, a table and an armchair, fridge, microwave, and a TV.

The bathroom was small, with the usual small American size bath over which was the shower. The water was nice and hot with good pressure.
We were given flannels, hand towels, bath towels, and there was a small bar of soap. The sink was not in the bathroom, it was just outside in the bedroom.

The Keno Motel, in Reno, Nevada was an ok choice for us, it was reasonably priced, and centrally located, but then I guess everywhere is, as Reno is small.
Unfortunately the bedbugs had a feast, I’m covered in bites.

Keno Motel
322 N Arlington Ave, Reno, NV 89501
(775) 322-6281

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We spent one night at the Best Western Beach Dunes Inn, in Monterey, California, because it was the same price as the nearby campsite we’d originally planned to stay at. Why rough it when you don’t have to?

We were given a queen-size room, which was massive.
The room had two queen-size beds which were very comfortable. Also in the room was a leather armchair and footstool, desk, chair, fridge, and a TV.
The sink wasn’t in the bathroom it was at the far end of the bedroom in a separate area, which also contained a clothes rail, filter coffee machine and complimentary coffee, an ironing board and iron.

The bathroom was very small, especially compared to the spacious bedroom. It had the usual small American size bath over which was the shower. The shower was good, lots of hot water and decent water pressure.
There were lots of flannels, hand towels, bath towels, soap and shampoo.

Breakfast was included in our room rate at the Best Western Beach Dunes Inn, in Monterey, California. It was described as a continental breakfast which was self service. There was quite a good choice of food available, including yogurt, cereal, various bread for toasting, hard boiled eggs, and a waffle machine which was very popular with other guests.

The receptionist was very welcoming and friendly when we arrived tired from driving. She was chatty and had a good look through Richards passport at the various visas and stamps of the countries visited.
The following morning when he checked us out of the hotel, a different receptionist told Richard that she loved his English accent.

There was a spa (open-air jacuzzi) at the hotel, we were too exhausted to use it.
We did make good use of the free WiFi in our room though.
We enjoyed our stay at the Best Western Beach Dunes Inn, in Monterey, California, it’s in a nice location right opposite the sand dunes, great for walking.

Best Western Beach Dunes Inn
3290 Dunes Drive
Marina, CA 93933
www.beachdunesinn.com

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During our road trip we crossed over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Photos of the Golden Gate Bridge

Video of the Golden Gate Bridge

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During our road trip from Los Angeles to New York City we visited Hearst Castle.
To go round the castle we had to buy tickets for a tour, which is not something we usually do as we much prefer to explore everything by ourselves. But this tour wasn’t bad at all, in fact it was quite enjoyable, apart from the $25 each entrance fee – joking!
The tour started with a bus ride along the winding picturesque road up to the castle. Then followed a walking tour around the inside of the property. We saw the assembly hall, a dining room, and a billiards room. Then outside we wandered round the Neptune Pool, which is very Las Vegas in design. The indoor Roman Pool was beautiful, a much more classy design.
We would like to have been able to see more of the rooms inside the mansion, maybe a bedroom or the kitchen, but it was not permitted.

It was a gloriously hot sunny day when we visited Hearst Castle, perfect for taking photos and video, which we did.

If you’re interested, here’s a brief bit of history about Hearst Castle.

Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the coast in San Simeon, in California, America.
The owner was the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. He employed a female architect, Julia Morgan to make his dreams a reality, which she did between 1919 and 1947.

William Hearst named the estate La Cuesta Encantada (The Enchanted Hill), but usually referred to it as ‘the ranch’.

William Randolph Hearst died in 1951, and in 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the entire property to the state of California. It has been run as a state historic park since 1957, with the estate, its collection of art and antiques open for public tours.

The public tour are obviously popular as Hearst Castle reportedly attracts one million visitors a year, which is quite impressive considering it’s not centrally located.

We enjoyed our morning of typical tourism at Hearst Castle. We just wish they’d have allowed us to splash about in the Roman Pool.

Photos of Hearst Castle, San Simeon,California

Video of Hearst Castle, San Simeon,California

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Driving up the coast from Hearst Castle we stopped of the watch the Elephant Seals enjoying themselves on a beach near San Simeon, California.

Photos of Elephant Seals at San Simeon

Video of Elephant Seals at San Simeon

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Richard booked us three nights at the Los Angeles Adventurer All Suite Hotel at LAX.
It’s a miracle he’s alive to tell the tale, because when he told me he’d booked a hotel in Inglewood, I was less than impressed.
I went online immediately to read any reviews I could about this hotel. Then I read them all out loud to Richard, who was trying to concentrate on something he was writing. There were lots and lots of reviews. I was hoping he’d book somewhere else just to get me to stop talking, but alas I was out of luck. The booking stood.

Right, the hotel, what was it like?
It was pretty much exactly as I’d expected. The majority of the reviews I’d read were bad, and they were accurate.
It’s a party hotel. There are lots of youngsters, oh my god writing that made me feel ancient, anyway, yep, youngsters there drinking and enjoying themselves. Scandalous! ;o

I’d read so many bad things about the Los Angeles Adventurer All Suite Hotel at LAX, here’s a few of them, and what I thought about the reviewers comments.
The noise from the planes flying overhead as they arrived and departed LAX, which is just up the road, made sleeping an impossibility.
I heard the planes, but they weren’t particularly loud, and I managed to sleep, and I rarely sleep at night.
Police sirens barring all night long were mentioned as another reason sleep was not possible.
Yes, there were police sirens, often, but not all night long, and they were no problem for us. No doubt they were a problem for whoever they were chasing, presuming that they caught up with them.
The rooms stink of cigarettes.
Well, we asked, or I should say Richard asked for a smoking room, and yes it did stink to high heaven of fags, but then it would wouldn’t it.
There are lots of dodgy people hanging around the reception.
Admittedly we didn’t spend hours in the reception, but I never saw any dodgy people. Well, apart from my reflection, I looked well dodgy, but then as I said I rarely sleep so I’m hardly going to look fantastic am I.
The food in the restaurant is crap.
I wouldn’t say it was that bad. We ate dinner there one evening, and it was fine. The waitress was pleasant too, despite being rushed off her feet.
The beds were full of bedbugs.
I’m not sure about this one. I did feel itchy, but then I have sensitive skin, and the bed linen wasn’t cotton, it had manmade fibres which always give me static shock, and they’re nasty, so maybe that’s why I felt itchy.
The reception staff are rude and unhelpful.
Hmm, unfortunately I agree with this one. The reception staff at the Los Angeles Adventurer All Suite Hotel at LAX were rude and unhelpful. In fact I think they’re probably the most unprofessional horrible staff we’ve ever had the displeasure to be ‘served’ by at any hotel we’ve ever stayed at, and we’ve stayed at millions. That’s only a very slight exaggeration, but we have stayed at lots and lots of hotels all around the world.
We spoke to several different receptionists during our stay at this hotel, but not once were we treated politely. It wasn’t just us though, they seemed to treat most of the other hotel guests badly too.

Right, that’s enough of the rambling re the reviews I read.
What was our room like? Well, the hotel is called Los Angeles Adventurer All Suite Hotel at LAX, because they have suites. We stayed in a suite. I say suite, you probably picture a very nice place. Don’t! It wasn’t awful, we’ve stayed in worse places, but then we’ve just spent the past ten months in the third world, but this place is a budget hotel, so obviously it offers basic accommodation. No frills.
Our ‘suite’ consisted of three rooms, all thick with the stench of cigarette, just how Richard likes it.
The suite was rundown and in need of some tlc, but it was clean-ish. That is to say the cleaners were obviously cleaning it, but they were fighting a bit of a losing battle.
We had a lounge, which was a good size, as were the bedroom and bathroom.

The door to our suite opened into the lounge. It was carpeted, which was horrible, but much appreciated as it was definitely warmer than walking on the bare floor. We were feeling cold having arrived in LA to find temperatures were about 20c lower than what we’d been enjoying.
Anyway, back to the rooms. The lounge had a comfortable sofa, a table and two chairs, a drawer unit on top of which was a TV.
In one corner of the lounge was a sink, with a fridge underneath.
There were small tables, each with a lamp on top, on either side of the settee.

The bedroom had a double bed and a clothes rail with a shelf above. There were lockers on either side of the bed with lamps.
The bed was horrible. The mattress was really soft and uncomfortable. The pillows were lumpy.

The bathroom was quite nice, especially compared to the other two rooms. There was the usual small American bath, over which was the shower. The shower was lovely, lots of hot water, and good strong water pressure.
We were given two flannels, two bath towels, and a bath mat. All were changed daily for fresh clean ones. We were also given lots of soap, shampoo, and loo paper.

The one thing most of the reviews I read about the Los Angeles Adventurer All Suite Hotel at LAX said, even the bad reviews, was that the hotel give away lots of free drink and food.
This is true.
There’s free tea and coffee available all the time. Self service by the bar.
A popcorn machine full of hot popcorn.
Homemade blueberry muffin for breakfast. I ate a couple of bits of one, not nice.
Free hot food in the restaurant between 6-7pm.
We saw quite a few blokes come in the restaurant the evening we ate there, they ate and seemed to enjoy this free food. Basically it was a few dishes of serve yourself fried food. Chips, nachos, and rice. It all looked yukky, but if you’re on a very tight budget at least it’s warm, free, and better than nothing.

Other things on offer at the hotel included lots of arcade machines, an air-hockey table, a couple of pool tables, several vending machines selling drinks and snacks, and an outdoor swimming pool.
The hotel also has a free shuttle bus service which runs 24hours a day. Hotel guests can get picked up and dropped off a the airport, as well as various other tourists sites in LA.

We, and by we I mean Richard, mainly booked the Los Angeles Adventurer All Suite Hotel at LAX because not only was it a budget hotel which suited our pockets but more importantly it’s located on the same street as the company we hired a camper-van from, which is the only reason we were in Los Angeles.
Did we enjoy our stay? Well, we didn’t like or dislike it. It served its purpose for us. Would we stay there again? No way!

Los Angeles Adventurer All Suite Hotel at LAX
4200 West Century Blvd.
Inglewood, CA. 90304
PH: 1-310-419-0999
USA : 1-800-852-0012
Canada: 1-800-648-6363
Fax: 1-310-412-9100

http://www.laadventurerhotel.com/

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We arrived at LAX from Hawaii at about 4.30pm and caught the airport shuttle bus to our hotel. Still being tired from our flight from Manila, Philippines a few days before, we decided to stay at the hotel and had an early dinner. The food on our Hawaiian Airways flight was terrible, so bad we didn’t eat it, so we were in need of a good feed.

Eating in Los Angeles
Our first meal was at our hotel. We ordered a couple of steak dinners. I asked for a rare steak, it was served a bit well done for my liking. Our meals were served with vegetable soup which was good, a salad, and fresh home-made bread which was also good. The salad was ok. As we were feeling exhausted we didn’t eat much of the main course of our dinner, but at least it was better than the aeroplane food.

Red Lobster, Inglewood.
As a rule we avoid these types of chain restaurants at all costs, but after being in the Philippines and suffering the food there, a Red Lobster meal was a major step up the culinary scale, and as the restaurant was in the strip mall that we were shopping in it seemed as good a place as any to eat.
We both ordered the Chefs Pasta Lunch, which was lobster and prawns with linguine ($14.75). It came with salad and Parmesan rolls. For drinks, it was a Sam Adams Draft ($5.25) for me, and a bottomless raspberry lemonade ($2.85) for Laura.
The food was surprisingly good.

Rally’s, Crenshaw Hall.
Nasty burger time. Famished and having missed breakfast we grabbed something to eat at Rally’s. I had a chicken burger, Laura had a fish burger. Neither of us finished our food. It was horrible, very greasy. We should know better than to order crap food, but apparently we don’t.

Shopping in Los Angeles
Ross, Dress for Less, Inglewood.
In need of some new clothes, and not wanting to spend much money we asked the receptionist at our hotel to recommend somewhere. She suggested Ross. It turned out to be a good suggestion as I picked up a pair of Ed Hardy jeans for $21.99 and two pairs of socks for for $4.99. Laura got a pair of Levi’s for $19.99. Happy days.
We were in desperate need of these clothes because having spent the past ten months in Asia all of our clothes were more suitable for warm weather, and not the cold temperatures we were uncomfortably experiencing in LA.

Marshalls, Inglewood.
These feet were made for walking. Needing a pair of shoes for driving, being no longer able to wear sandals as it was too cold in Los Angeles, and I’d thrown them away in Hawaii, I picked up a pair of Ralph Laurent plimsolls for a very happy $29.

Bad Boy Clothing, Crenshaw Hall.
I managed to pick up a hoodie to stave off the cold. I was looking for something bright and cheerful but as I couldn’t find anything I purchased a charcoal grey hoodie, not very exciting, but warm and a good price at $21.75. The guy in the shop was raving about the new charcoal colour. He also had hoodies in black and marl, but he seemed very pleased about this new charcoal colour. No idea why?

Summary

Our main reason for being in L.A. was to collect a camper-van for our planned road trip to drive from Los Angeles to New York.
The camper-van pickup was smooth, we didn’t do much whilst in LA, we didn’t do the typical touristy things like visiting Universal Studios, Chinatown, Disneyland ;d etc. but we did drive down to Santa Monica beach to wander along the sand and onto the pier. It would have been a shame to visit L.A. and not do at least one touristy thing.

Disclaimer.
We did low rent shopping because the items are not things we plan on keeping when we leave America (they’ll be chucked out as soon as we’re done with them), and low rent eating because of convenience, and to get a taste of every day America. ;d

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I booked three nights at the Hawaiian Monarch Hotel in Waikiki, Honolulu online via the Agoda website.

Our room was on the 16th floor of the block. The room was a decent size, although the low ceiling made it feel smaller than it was.
The double bed was quite small, there was a locker on one side of the bed. The mattress was very soft, so soft that sleeping on it felt like sleeping on a waterbed, when one of us moved the whole bed moved.
The room was well furnished. There was a freestanding double wardrobe, a large drawer unit, on top of which was a TV, lamp, microwave, and filter coffee machine. Coffee was complimentary for the first day only, after which each sachet cost $2.
Also in the room was a small fridge, two chairs and a table, and a luggage rack.
There was a small safe on the floor in one corner of the room, it cost $3 plus tax per day to use.
We didn’t drink the coffee after the first day, or use the safe.

The air-conditioning unit was quite an old noisy one, mounted in the window, but it worked very well.

The bathroom was a good size. The bathtub was installed on the floor, it was small, but I think it was a standard American size. The shower was over the bath. The shower was good, the water pressure was excellent, and there was always lots of hot water.
There was a bottle of conditioning shampoo and two bars of soap when we checked-in. We had two bath towels, two hand towels, two flannels, and a bath mat.

We liked our room, not for the decor which was very dated, eighties style, but for the view. Our room was at the rear of the hotel, canal side, so we had nice views looking down along the canal which was always busy with long boats, and joggers running along the path.

Breakfast was not included in our room rate.
There is a restaurant, the Cream Pot, at the Hawaiian Monarch Hotel in Waikiki, but as we didn’t eat there I can’t say anything about it.
There were lots of other enterprises on the ground floor of the hotel. There was a moped rental company, car rental, trike rental, a minimart, fast-food joint, a bar, beauty salon etc.
The bar was alright, the barman was friendly. There was food available in the bar, pizza etc.
The swimming pool is on the eighth floor, no idea what it’s like because we never looked.

We booked this hotel because it suited our budget. It was a pleasant surprise to find it was in a good location. We would stay at the Hawaiian Monarch Hotel if ever we were lucky enough to visit Waikiki again.

Hawaiian Monarch Hotel
444 Niu Street
Honolulu, Hawaii 96815

http://www.hawaiianmonarchhotels.com

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