Friday 5th June

We were reluctant to leave Cambria this morning, it was such a lovely place to be. But we had over 200 miles to go so we had no option but to leave around 9.45 to give us time for various stops on the way.

Our first stop was Avila Beach near San Louis Obispo and we had a walk along the long pier there. We could hear the seals ‘barking’ loudly but couldn’t see them anywhere. We then realised that they were underneath us so we found a stairway down and we found ourselves really ‘up close and personal’ with them.

We had lunch at Santa Barbara. We drove out onto the long pier there and had a lovely lunch at one of the many restaurants. Looking out of the window by our table I could see many large birds on the beach on the opposite side of the harbour entrance, and they were pelicans - I have never seen so many
Santa Barbara was lovely and I wished we had more time o spend there. The buildings were Spanish Mission style and there were many really high palm trees.

We then headed off for LA. It took about one and a half hours to drive to the Hollywood area where Dorothy’s daughter lives - another Valerie! Valerie has twin 9-month-old sons and they were adorable. Valerie lives right opposite Universal Studios in the heart of Hollywood and has a lovely one-storey house in such a quiet area that you would never think you were in the centre of LA.

From there we took the last leg of our drive to Huntington Beach, where Dorothy lives. That took us right though the centre of LA so it was an interesting trip although the LA freeways lived up to their name so it was a slow-ish drive due to the amount off traffic.

The total mileage from Redding to Huntington Beach was 1667 miles and we can’t thank Val enough for driving us all that way. She was fab!