Wow, last night we decided to head out for a couple of beers...as we were leaving early the next morning... ;) Can you see where this is going...

Civilised chatting about our trip, roll the clock on 2 hours later, we're stood on stage singing our hearts out to Maggi May playing air guitar with a load of screaming Irish girls we met...! Made the train too, though absolutely shattered. We arrived in Santa Monica this afternoon and after a check in that felt like an eternity they told us someone had "screwed up" our booking, fear not, we got upgraded and have an amazing room! Woo! Just checked out the beach, literally, 1 minute walk which is where I will be spending tomorrow... ;) And just had an email from a friend I met who is already in New Zealand and warned me thermals might be a good idea, so going to make the most of the sunshine!

Here is yesterdays blog as its pretty funny, incase anyone missed it.

As I gaze down the side of my bed in Santa Barbara i notice the bull dog clip with my name and check out date, as I take a closer look it reads.... HARGIN EDWARDS.... For *%#$ $%@* What is it with my name! ;)

As I have a little time on my hands I thought i'd tell a few interesting tales from the past week or so! One great story on the same lines as the above joke is - we met a girl from England she was hungry, went into a SubWay (A huge sandwitch chain here, offering sub's of the day, a range of different butties ) Anyway, she went into the shop, and asked, "What is the sub of the day" A simple question you may think, but wait, the reply was something like this, "sorry mam, we don't serve soup", "no, sorry, what's the sub of the day" "No mam, we don't serve soup in summer" After this step repeating for god knows how long, our friend from England gives up and just asks for a turkey sandwitch, to which the reply was, "Chicken?"

On our way into Santa Cruz, loaded up with our packs, obvisously looking like tourists, we made the fatal mistake of looking helplessly lost... over comes this dude, "hey guys where you looking for", after we let him know, he helps us out, but as we were leaving, mike says, "So, what do you do?" And I love this reply, "OK, i'm not going to lie, but i'm, a fugative from the 80's always on the run" He was cool enough, and off he went as we scuttled to our hotel ;)

Santa Barbara is fantastic - and today I had my picture taken under a piece of artwork 11 years later which was a cool thing to do! We've been here for a good few days and met some interesting characters...!

Ok, advice, try not to wear i.e. FLORIDA tshirts when you're in other states, it's attracted more attention that I really desired, from Texas in a lift where a guy said it's illegal to wear FLORIDA gear in Texas to yesterdays FLORIDA based incident...

...minding our own business, sipping some coffee in the morning sun, a 50ish yr old guy with a peeling nose stops by and shouts "you from Florida", "erm, no, England", "oh, I worked in England once", and then we were subject to his entire life history, and honestly we hardly spoke to him, he just kept talking, and after 15 minutes of him telling us about carpentry and how water pumps work I was getting increasing likely to nod off, in the back of my mind waiting for the deaded sob story and "can I have a dollar please", but no, he was a normal chap and went on his way! Off we headed to see the Summer Solstice parade down State St. Awesome, you really feel like you're travelling when you involved in things like that!

Tomorrow, to complete our range of transport we're heading out on a train to LA, it's so close it would be rude not to try it, especially as its woken me up 3 times every night since we've been here ;)

We have 4 nights in Santa Monica and then heading south to San Pedro before we board our Independance Day Cruise which I am very excited about!

Until next time...