Feeling more comfortable with the traffic in LA (when in Rome attitude has me driving like a New York cabbie), we set Gertrude for Santa Monica and a cruise along the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu, not a long drive but quite scenic.
We were in and out of Santa Monica without even noticing. It's funny how I imagined Santa Monica would look, probably based purely on some obscure input from my childhood and a song by Savage Garden... It's just a little town...
Malibu is interesting with it's beach houses (ala Two and a Half Men) and surf culture.
Malibu itself is located where the Malibu canyon meets the coastline. We took a quick drive up into the canyon and then back along the highway through Marina Del Rey and on to Redondo Beach. This is a beautiful part of the coastline with mansions clinging to the hillside, just waiting for the next earth quake.. Hang on, we're staying in a cliff side house too!!

Eventually coming back around to Los Angeles harbour. OMG this port is enormous! The biggest container port in the US, it is more than 65Km long...
From there we were on to Long Beach with it's white-ish (compared to WA) sand beaches and endless beach volleyball nets. Unfortunately the weather is still a little cool, so we didn't see any scantily clad, buxom girls on roller blades (blame Baywatch and The Hoff) sailing along the boardwalks... Sorry Rob C.... :)

Heading back towards home, we stopped in at an Automotive Museum we had read about. Arriving 20 minutes before closing time, we decided we would return tomorrow for a good look around.
Heading out to our favourite Sushi restaurant for dinner. There was some excitement in town as the Police shut down a night club in the heart of Hollywood. They wouldn't say why, but between the 12+ squad cars (all reverse angle parked along the road), the chopper circling overhead and the street cordoned off, we guessed they were expecting trouble..
Oh, by the way, don't press your luck with street parking after hours in Hollywood. Most of the street parking becomes clearways after 6.00pm. There are "parking enforcement" patrol cars, backed up by dozens of tow trucks that just move into a street and remove every car. Taking them to an impound yard to be collected the next day, after a hefty fine of course..