We left San Diego at about lunchtime, feeling a little the worse for wear. And it was my turn to drive. This was the first time that we'd driven somewhere with no idea as to where we would sleep that evening and it felt kind of strange, but a place called Ventura had been recommended to us as it is about 30 miles south of Santa Barbara where we wanted to go the following day and it was reputedly a hell of a lot cheaper. We left San Diego confident in the knowledge that the directions that we had printed from Mapquest would get us to our destination in a couple of hours...In actual fact it took us 5 and a half, which I guess is a bit like driving from home to Newcastle upon Tyne or something. I guess the freeway we were on was the equivalent of the M25, only with much more heat and smog. I think maybe Southern Californians leave Southern California for the weekend, and being Friday afternoon we had to sit in the queues with them. It was at this point that we first realised that it was a bit odd of us to have flown into LAX and spent 3 days in Los Angeles and then to have driven 140 miles south to San Diego only to drive back up past Los Angeles to get further north. We eventually rocked up in Ventura (which for future reference, at night, is a little bit like an industrial estate) at about 7pm. Having successfully navigated ourselves to the end of a deadend road, followed by one of our regular U turns, we managed to get into the motel - which was exactly as American motels are in your imagination. We had an upstairs room which came off a kind of balcony/walkway. I kind of expected to get up in the morning to find them fishing a dead body out of the outdoor swimming pool! I do have to say though that it was lovely to walk into the room and have the bed already made and not have to contend with a load of Germans who are sharing your space, and weirdly it wasn't much more expensive than a lot of the hostels we've since stayed in. We went over the road to Denny's for something to eat (which we've decided is kind of like an American Little Chef, only edible) and had an early night. x