We headed of to Kingsford Smith Airport this morning at 11am, using the shuttle bus, to ensure we had ample time to catch our flight to LA departing at 1.40pm. After a bit of a tour of the northern beaches we arrived at the airport with a comfortable, but not excessive, amount of time to spare.
The Virgin flight left right on time, and we arrived in LA around 25 minutes early, at 10.05am LA time. We were both pleasantly surprised at the comfort of the plane and the in flight service, which was very good. The food was better than I have had on a plane for some time.
Arrival at LA International airport, bought back some old memories. Queues were horrendous and it took us just under an hour to clear immigration (not surprisingly now looking at how thoroughly they screen everyone), but thereafter things went smoothly, with our bags having done several laps of the carousel and customs clearance was a breeze.
Next was organising our rental car, and we we're lucky enough to step straight onto the Alamo shuttle bus as soon as we walked our the door at arrivals. Once at their yard, we were in our car within 20 minutes and braving the streets of LA within 30 minutes. Fortunately the Tom Tom GPS unit I had purchased over the net fired up and guided us on our way with no hassles.
It is a beautiful day, around 25 C, blue skies, only light breezes and a touch humid. We immediately felt overdressed for the conditions.
However, we were not fully prepared for the traffic, which was much heavier than expected, and Tom Tom kept on trying to find us a faster way, which we soon got bored with.
Could that be Billy Connelly in front of us ?
Our destination for tonight, is San Luis Obispo (SLO), about 200 miles North of LA. It was a scenic drive, but the traffic persisted for much of the way, and including a 20 minute break for lunch, it took us 4.5 hours to get there.
Our lunch stop was at a little town called Buellton, CA, its claim to fame being "The home of Split Pea Soup", but we decided to embrace American culture immediately and had a hamburger at Carl's Jr. It was better than expected, and we were hungry ! On the way we checked out Santa Barbara and a few other towns but kept going until we finally has to stop.
Lunch, at last !!
Out Trusty Rental Car
Arrived at SLO at around 5 pm, tired and in serious need of a shower. Peter Mac had sent a SMS letting us know that they had arrived in Paso Robles and were enjoying the town, looking forward to catching up with us in Carmel tomorrow.
Our Home for the night in SLO
Having settled in and tidied up, we ventured out into the town looking for a suitable dinner venue. The staff at our motel recommended a couple and after a nice walk down through the town, we finished up at a restaurant, The Apple Farm, across the road from our motel. It was their preferred restaurant anyway and turned out to be great.
Our Restaurant for the evening
Having heard from Chris Hollingsworth that there was a need to sample the craft beers along the way, we started our research tonight, with a beer from the little town we had lunch at, Buellton. The beer was called Danish Red Lager, and it was sensational.
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