… and what a week its been. Here’s a brief overview…
Monday – after a long flight (about 12 hours) we landed
about midday, picked up the hire car and checked into the motel. Mark has
already commented on what we expected to see, i.e. chalked outlines of bodies
on the carpet, but so far, it’s been ok. We then found a bank, opened accounts
and got our debit cards the same day (Wells Fargo have been brilliant)
Tuesday – started looking at RVs and searching online for a
vehicle to tow.
Wednesday – found an RV we liked and I started the haggling
(sorry, negotiating process). At around 6pm, the saleswoman stated we were
going for a test drive and got Mark into the driver’s seat. Poor bugger was
still jet lagged with eyeballs hanging out on stalks, driving a 38 foot bus on
the wrong side of the road, in rush hour with the daylight fading fast. He
admitted later that he was crapping himself, and so was I, but the saleswoman didn't bat
an eyelid. After a bit more negotiating, we settled on a price, put down a
deposit and went back to the motel. By this time it was around 9pm.
Thursday - we went to a few car dealers and ended up 80
miles away looking at a Suzuki Grand Vitara which fitted the bill i.e. capable
of being flat towed. I started the negotiating process (I’m quite good at that
you might have gathered), settled on a price and put down a deposit. It was the only viable one in a 300 mile radius, so we got a good deal.
Friday – vehicles cannot be registered to hotels/motels (funnily
enough), so we needed a post box. As we are not US citizens, we cannot have a
normal post box so ended up renting the world’s most expensive post box (through
UPS) who will then charge an arm and a leg to forward on any mail to whatever
town we happen to be in at the time the post arrives (complicated), got
insurance on both vehicles, and went back to the RV dealers and gave them the
updated info.
Saturday – time to kick back and do tourist stuff. We went
up into the Hollywood hills to Griffith
Observatory, and these are the views we saw:
our car is parked down there somewhere
LA in the smog
Sunday – more tourist stuff, this time to Santa
Monica beach and pier, and to Venice
Beach (including the original Muscle Beach
Monday – time to pick up our car which meant I had to drive
the hire car from the dealers back to the rental place at LA airport, 80 miles
away, on a 12 lane Freeway with 6 lanes of traffic going in the same direction,
very VERY fast, and overtaking on both sides. To top it all off, it started
raining – sigh! We even bought a pair of walkie talkies in case I lost Mark in the traffic and took a wrong exit off the freeway. I’m glad to say I only got honked at once (for cutting up a
truck) and I wasn't the nervous wreck I thought I was going to be at the end of it. And the walkie talkies will come in useful when Mark has to reverse the bus into a spot and can't see me at the back - I can yell at him to stop!
Today we did the Paramount Studios tour behind the scenes
and saw the back lots, sets of New
York streets and how the film makers stitch it all
together to trick our brains into believing its all real.
this view is often seen in movies as the Hollywood sign is visible in the background
We then walked down Hollywood Boulevard and Avenue of the
Stars to the Chinese theatre where the hand and footprints are:
Half the people we've met think we’re mad doing this trip
and the other half wants to be adopted. So far we've got our personal banker
and her two managers and the sales and finance guys from both the car and RV
dealership that want to come along. To be honest, there’s more than enough room
for them in the storage bins under the RV J We pick up our new
home on Thursday and head down to Newport Beach for a month so we can start our
trip properly. We’re both looking forward to catering for ourselves again too
as the portions here are so large, we end up eating leftovers for breakfast, lunch
or dinner the following day.
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