Last day here in the US and the plan is to take it pretty easy. We checked out about 10.30 and slowly made our way via Laurel Canyon to see Scott at Unique Corals getting there a little after 12. He's made some changes to his operation, it's always good to hear what others are doing. We left our esky full of travel food prep bits with him ready to collect next year. The local Denny's was an easy lunch option, Cal club sandwich for me and the last big burger of...

Another day of replacing lol I had a brain wave this morning, we could pack all the stuff we drag back and forth into the esky which we also bring each year and ask a mate of we can leave it with the. For the next ten months til we are back. First request we sent out was to Scott Feldman and almost instantly we got a message reply that that was no problem at all. Yay! More room now to take some stock when we see one of our suppliers today :-) It was a fairly ea...

Leaving our hotel we headed straight for the coast. It had been raining since before we woke up and initially it was quite heavy going driving through it. By the time we hit the coast road the rain had eased to a drizzle but the skies remained heavy and dark. We drove through hip, expensive looking beachside suburbs and started seeing the usual California combo of gum trees and palms, always a sign we are getting closer to home :-) Opposite Carlsbad beach is a...

We woke quite early to another sunny, clear blue sky day. There was a good breakfast on offer but a crowded breakfast room so we grabbed what we wanted and went back to our room to eat. Watching the news there's still flood alerts for SC from the hurricane but a message to Veronica and Larry found them to be ok other than copping a lot of rain. We set off before ten and were soon out of town passing desert, a rodeo yard full of horses that appeared to be getting...

After an early breakfast of our scrambled eggs and bacon, toast and hotel coffee we packed the car up and set off heading east. It was typical US hwy; traffic jams on the other side and a constant parade of chain restaurants and stores on either side. Mountains surrounded us as the temp slowly rose the further east we went and the on-going drought became more apparent. Just out of Palm Springs there's a massive wind farm on both sides of the road and up high on t...