Day 197, 198 - Return to LA & surrounds, California - Monday 30th April, Tuesday 1st May 2012

We woke and headed straight for the American style diner round the corner from the motel we'd stayed at in Williams. Two coffees, some oatmeal with banana, an egg, bacon and cheese muffin with hash brown later we were ready to hit the road. Today was a mammoth 450 mile journey back to LA which according to the internet should take about eight hours - it was going to be a long driving day.

Four hours in and with flat, numb bums we made our first pit stop for food, fuel and water. Back on the road and come 5pm we were in LA - it had only taken us six hours so we were chuffed. We decided before checking back into the Trylon we'd try and find a good spot to see the Hollywood sign from; well this was a bad idea as we drove around for an hour and still couldn't spot the bloody thing! Every time it came into view it would sneakily disappear again! We gave in and headed to the hotel to chill and sleep so we'd be fresh and ready for a day of sightseeing in LA the next day.

LA is a funny place - it's an oddball assortment of different areas that vary in pretty much every aspect. One minute you're driving down a litter strewn street with drunks sleeping on the edge of the pavement and the next you're in a street with amazing flowers and LV and Tiffany shops. I think my favourite sight though was the guy standing on the edge of Hollywood Blvd completely naked apart from a pair of neon green Y fronts with a handwritten sign on a piece of cardboard saying "I love sluts" - sheer brilliance.

After getting directions from the guy at our hotel we found the Hollywood sign - it was literally two streets from our hotel; typical hey! After snapping lots of photos we decided to drive round the various sights including Sunset Blvd, Beverley Hills and Rodeo Drive. LA is a complex place to drive around without a proper map and the streets are soooooo long, plus they all have a north, east, south, west way - it's all far too confusing for us! After quite a lot of driving and wrong turns, we eventually ended up in Venice Beach and so parked the car and wandered along the beachfront looking for somewhere good to get some food. Now, it's got to be said that Venice beach is a bit of a dump. A fun to look at dump, but still a dump. First up we met a snoop dog wannabe who was actually quite friendly and gave us a copy of his CD. Then we were harassed by the million and one shops that for $40 will give you a prescription for you to legally buy marijuana! And finally comes all of the homeless people selling anything they can get their hands on - I'm pretty sure some of which is just someone else's rubbish! We stumbled across muscle beach but unfortunately no muscles were out to play! Eventually we found a cute little café and settled down for a coffee and sandwich which turned out to be really tasty. Fed and watered we headed back to the car and drove up to Santa Monica and had a quick peek around the shops before heading towards the airport to drop off our car and catch our flight. Next stop Miami, with a quick changeover in Philli, to celebrate Ad's birthday in style!!

P.S. We forgot to mention in the Las Vegas (baby) blog that whilst queuing for tickets for Cirque Du Soleil a woman in a cab pulled to the side of the road opened the window and pulled her top down to jiggle her fake boobs at us!!! So funny as some old bloke with his wife kept saying "Do it again, one more baby!!" and she did! Three times! Sorry we forgot that bit but I just remembered that now!!x