Yes yes most of you must be wondering where we are due to the lack of posting. We stayed in San Diego until Sunday July 6th and then left and started driving up the coast. We only drove about an hour or so because we left pretty late from Kevin’s. We also had nooo food, so before we stopped at the state park where we were going to spend the night on the beach we made a trip to Albertson’s to stock up. Of course this turned into Chris reading the newspaper as I shopped for food, but hey what do you expect, he is a boy. He did pick out a handle of Jack Daniels that was on sale for $30.
We pack up our food and drive over to San Clemente State Beach and realize that there is a “campsites full” sign outside; great, just what we needed. We decided to drive through there anyways because we were still sooo tired and recovering from our crazy week with Kevin. Luckily there was an empty spot so we plugged in and pretty much went straight to bed. The next day we woke up and tried to reserve the campsite we were staying in again for Monday night that way we would wake up at the beach on my birthday, but no it was reserved. We stayed in that spot 2 hours past what we were supposed to (we wanted to get our full $34 out of it) and when the next people were honking to get in the spot, we quickly unplugged and drove over to the beach (we didn’t have to pay the ten dollar fee to park at the beach because we had already paid to camp the night before).
We spent the whole day hanging out at the beach, napping, and watching all the surfers. The waves are pretty crazy there but the water was WAY to cold for us to go in. Right behind the little stretch of beach that we were sitting on was the oceanfront railroad tracks and we saw at least 5 passenger cars go by us that day. The sun was beginning to set, so we hiked back up to the parking lot and made dinner right there (one of the convinces of living in and rv).
It’s around ten o’clock and night and we were still homeless for the night. Chris wanted to just sleep in the parking lot at the beach but I didn’t want to wake up on my birthday to someone towing us or an expensive parking ticket. Instead we drove 2 miles away to another state campground that was also completely full. We drove through and found a nice secluded spot and plugged in. Chris made a fire and we just relaxed until midnight when….I turned 22. (I even got a really cool video of little Kuhsie duck singing happy birthday with a corn muffin and candle. Maybe I can upload it later with Chris’s help.)
We woke up and cleaned up the campsite, and then went to go take showers, which cost 25 cents for 2.5 minutes!! Well we of course have no quarters so we go up to the booth and they don’t have any change at all either. We go back to the rv and dug around for change and came up with 5 quarters to share (i wonder who used more time…).
We left the campground and continued up the coast to Laguna Beach where we were going to have lunch for the day. After the short 45 minute dive we had to figure out where we could park our house. Parking was ten dollars most places so instead of giving money to a parking lot, we decided to pay ten dollars and park at a state campground, which we ended up regretting because they were all assholes to us and kept giving us Such a hard time when we were loading and unloading the dirt bike (they even accused Chris of riding around in the park and he had to continuously tell them that we were only using it to get to town.)
Well we rode into town and drove all around Laguna Beach (to me it didn’t look the same as what the tv shows looked like). Yes the houses were all huge and nice and there were a lot of nice cars everywhere but it’s not one of my favorite stops on this trip. We find this little Mexican place that you can see the water and the beach from their balcony. I ask if they have any weekday or happy hour specials (Chris and I are always looking for a great deal) and the waiter says “um I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before” I guess they aren’t used to cheapos like us. Well we have a nice 50 dollar Mexican food lunch and head back to the rv so we can continue onward to LA.
Chris drove this next stretch because there was no way I was going to drive the rv through LA’s traffic. People are speeding around us left and right and blinkers, well I don’t think they mean anything to people in LA. Chris had to put on music after awhile to calm his road rage. We get to Culver City (about 8 miles outside of LA) and check into the Radisson there (I had a free stay saved up from a bad experience Chris and I had at a Radisson in Niagara Falls for my birthday last year).
We have a nice bottle of wine in the room and call a Taxi to head off to dinner. We were going to pay the $45 each way to go into Hollywood but instead we just went and ate at this really nice Cheesecake factory right on the water. The food and drinks were all really good and it was awesome to eat right on the beach. (my mom said that I could charge a dinner under 100 dollars and it just happened that our bill came out to 99.99 with tip:) haha I’m so tricky. After dinner we walked over to this really cool bar where we had some big margaritas and watched some motocross on tv. The bar was two stories, had a fire pit and plasma tvs everywhere. Our waitress was awesome and Chris asked if I could get a free shot since it was my birthday. She said sure as long as I went downstairs and took it with the head bartender because her birthday was in two days. We finish our drinks and go down to get my shot at the big bar. The bartender said it was another guys birthday too! His birthday was the 9th, mines was the 8th and the bartenders was the 10th. She pours us all (even Chris) a free shot a Patron…whoop whoop!!
After the bar we walk down to the beach and sit on the lifeguard stand for a little while. It was nice and cool out and we knew this was going to be the last time we were at the beach for a while. We started to walk back and there was a little convenience store were we bought a couple of really good cheap bottles of wine and Chris bought me the newest Cosmo magazine (since it was my birthday). We go to call a cab and see that there is one right outside of the bar we were just at. We go up to the cab and I guess some foreign girl had called for it and was trying to round up her friends inside. The driver didn’t care one bit, he told us to just hop in and $17 dollars later we were back at the hotel. It was a fun night and nice to come back to a big room.
In the morning we started to pack up (and of course got an extension on our checkout like we do everywhere). Chris does some work and we decide that since we are on this side of LA, we should take the dirt bike out to do all the sightseeing this afternoon before we got to City of Industry to see VIS and Seibon for Chris’s work. We left the rv in the parking lot and drove off to Rodeo Drive and Hollywood.
First we arrived at Rodeo drive and drove down looking at all the expensive stores that I won’t be able to afford until way after my law school debts are paid off. I didn’t even want to go look in the shops because I know I can’t afford anything. We did see about 50 people outside of one store with a bunch of cameras so we guessed someone famous was in there. We drove on trying to find a place to eat lunch and couldn’t find restaurants anywhere; people in LA must not eat. We finally see this place that has a nice patio outside and flowers, I think it was call Chick a Roo??? We order our food and go to sit down outside. I grab a magazine because Chris loves to read things while he waits for food. I opened it and start to realize that it had a lot of like gay news in it. I thought that was just how the issue was. Then Chris looks up and realizes that there are two big rainbow flags in the street; we totally stopped to eat in the gay part of town without knowing it. It worked out because everyone was super nice and the food was pretty reasonable.
From there we drove into Hollywood. We parked the dirt bike and walked the main strip where all the stars are and the Chinese Theatre. We did the touristy thing and put our hands and feet in the molds and walked the street while getting harassed by people trying to sell maps of stars homes. After a little bit of walking, I actually got to shop for the FIRST time this whole trip. I think I went in like 3-4 stores and bought 3 new dresses (all on sale). After I got a few new clothes, Chris decided that he really wanted a new cool “west coast style” t-shirt to wear. For those of you who don’t know, it’s the t shirts that have a lot of designs on them, skulls sometimes, they are the cool things to wear. Well we started looking and most the ones we likes were right around 100 dollars; there is no way Chris was going to pay that for a t-shirt. So we keep walking.
And walking. We kept walking down the road going in tons of stores that sold that style of shirt. Chris didn’t want too extreme of a shirt because he wants to still be able to wear it on the east coast and didn’t want to pay over 40 dollars for a shirt. Finally we find this store that had a shirt we both liked for around 40 dollars. It was a smaller store away from the tourist area so the owner comes up and offers Chris a 15% discount. After we hear that, we find another one that he likes and end up getting both shirts for a good deal….almost an hour and a half after our search began.
We walk back to the dirt bike and head back to the hotel we were are sure the rv is racking up a crazy parking bill. We also had to get out to City of Industry to we could meet Irving for dinner. (Chris’s VIS rep that he has never met and done business with for years) I go inside the hotel to pay out parking bill and somehow talked the guy into validating it for FREE…total score because it saved us almost 30 dollars. We loaded the dirt bike and headed off on the hour drive to the other side of LA, through rush hour traffic, while trying to find a decent hotel to stay at.
