Exploring the Local Area

14th November 2014

Today we are having a relaxing look around this area, with Peter and Deirdre as tour guides.

Our first visit was to a local Costco store. What an eyeopener, there is literally not much you can't buy there and the prices are mostly very cheap compared to home.

Then we headed off to a lovely little village that seems to be caught in a bit of a time warp, San Juan Capistrano. The old buildings are well preserved and any new development seems to blend in very well with the old.

The Oldest House in Town

                                                        The Railway Station

An old rail car has been converted into a restaurant

                                                                   The Mission

Swallows Inn was like stepping back into the wild west, once inside the bar

Next stop is Laguna Beach where we had a good walk around and lunch in a local cafe.

Then we went South to San Clemente, the southernmost of this strip of beachside towns. Architecture here is a bit more Spanish and there is a stronger Mexican flavour about the place. The main feature is the large pier that seems to be the focus of the town.

By now it is mid afternoon we head back to Dana Point for a rest, a cool drink and enjoy the view.

                                        It would be pretty hard to ever get sick of this view

                                               A uniquely branded local craft beer

Las Vegas to Dana Point

13th November 2014

Another drive is ahead of us today, this time to Dana Point, to spend a few days with the Macdonalds, before flying home to Sydney on Saturday. We had a quick breakfast at Starbucks, and were on the road by 8.30am.

It is a relatively easy drive, but not that scenic, a few hills and lots of barren land .

About 80m east of San Bernadino, we ran into a large temperature inversion, and we could see the layer of low cloud/ fog  well ahead of us in a valley. When we arrived there the temperature dropped 20 F almost immediately, and we drove through the fog (visiblilty was fine) for about 10 miles before we were back in clear air.

We made reasonably good time and got to Dana point in a bit over 4.5 hours.

Peter and Deirdre have a lovely house with views over the marina at Dana Point, making us feel at home immediately.

After setting in, we went for a walk down to the marina, for a light lunch and a look around. Dana Point really is a pretty place, and it is not hard to see why they have chosen to live here. There is no big city feel, a real village atmosphere and a great sense of community.

A Day in Las Vegas

12th November 2014

Today we have all day to explore Las Vegas. We had a good breakfast at MGM Grand Hotel, and ventured out onto the strip to see as much as we could in the limited time available.

First we checked out the nearby Casinos, Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay (also MGM properties linked by a monorail between the 3 Casinos.

The it was back for a very long walk along the strip walking through most of the famous casinos , but first a look through the substantial shopping complex in the Planet Hollywood Casino, and then on to Caesars Palace, The Bellagio, Paris, The Venetian (where we had lunch). All of the World’s top entertainers have shows on throughout the various casinos, but we are more interested in a relaxing night rather than rushing off to a show.

The scale and extravagance of the casinos is hard to comprehend and the sheer physical size of them meant we covered a lot of km, and by mid afternoon had aching feet, and were keen to get back to our hotel for a rest. We didn’t savour walking all of the way back, so caught a monorail, back to the MGM Grand, which is connected to New York New York.

After a short rest we it was around 6 pm, so we headed down to a bar in our hotel, where they had a great musician playing saxophone, and singing well known Motown,  and rhythm and blues tracks. The quality of the entertainers here is amazing. He was followed up later in the evening by dueling pianos, two pianists sitting face to face with their pianos belting out some of the most amazing music and vocals.

We are driving to Dana Point tomorrow, so opted to not have too late a night.