A Week in California - Condensed Version

Well readership, I am back safe and sound - though that can't be said of everyone in my travel party. I'll get to that later. On the first full day we stopped in for a tour of the UCLA campus. Nestled in the hills of Hollywood and Bel Air, it is one of the nicest campuses I've ever seen. It made me wish I was young enough to go back to college.


Later, we took a driving tour to see the local sites of LA. This included, Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, Mulholland Drive, Malibu, finishing up at the Santa Monica Pier. Of course no trip to LA would be complete without a stop at the World Famous Mashti Malones. An Iranian-Irish ice cream store - go figure.










Up early in the morning and after visiting several more cold, wind swept, empty beaches, we were off up the coast on US 1. After an overnight somewhere on the coast we finally made it to San Francisco late afternoon. Our first tour of San Francisco lasted almost 5 minutes, then our navigator took a wrong turn and we wound up in Oakland for 3 hours before finally getting back to San Francisco.

The next day we were up early for a day long walking tour, a ride on the trolley, of course, and a visit to Alcatraz - naturally. Surprisingly, San Francisco is very flat and the walking was easy!









After visiting Stanford Univ. and Berkley Univ. in the morning, we were once again on the road for the long drive back to LA. Made an overnight at a Motel 6 somewhere in the Fresno Valley where Megan broke into the pool area for a midnight swim.



The last day - we were ahead of schedule and so managed a quick stop at the also famous Randy's Donut shop before boarding the plane. Though it was the coldest weather they have had in California in ten years, the trip was fantastic.






Now - for the bad news. We arrived Toronto at 11 pm and on her way home to Kingston that night, Megan (my navigator on the California trip), spun out on some black ice and rolled her car several times on the 401. She is alright but now without a car. I've always told her that she was a better navigator than driver.