So its a short hop across land to the west coast and american airlines flight to LA. Collected another hire car from down town and much to my delight this car has "never lost" sat nav (bonus). Our first 4 nights are in mission bay a small town outside of san diego!

Our first stop was to get some lunch as we were both starving having no food on our 5 hour flight! Stopped in a small town called Carlsbad, about 1 hour from downtown LA. We had met a artist in Myrtle Beach who was from san diego and he had suggested visiting Carlsbad so we were pleased to see the sign on the freeway and took the opportunity to investigate! Really nice little sea side town very pretty with lots of small restaurants and shops, made a mental note to maybe come back to stay on our way back up to LA!!

Continued south to our hotel in mission bay, checked in and spent the afternoon cruising round in the car seeing a bit of the area. The evening was very low key, having been up since 5 am we were both exhausted so had some pasta and an early night!

Next day we decided to visit San Diego Zoo which is regarded by many as the best zoo in the world. Safe to say it didnt dissapoint, spent the entire morning and afternoon walking around the giant park which is more like a game reserve than a zoo! All the compounds that the animals were kept in were massive and the selection of animals they had were amazing! Would difinitely recommend it to anyone, well worth a visit. In the evening we went to downtown san diego and to the historic gas lamp area (another recommendation from our artist friend). The gas lamp area is a bit like the west end of glasgow with lots of trendy bars and restaurants all with their own take on happy hour so we thought it was rude not to take them up on their kind offer! I had a few glasses of wine and mike had a few cokes (designated driver). Then back to the hotel for a couple of microwave meals!

The next day unfortunately the weather turned so we went to a couple of big shopping outlets for a wander round! To be honest it is just not the same shopping when you cant buy anything cause you have no room to carry it! Went to the library to update the blog. Decided to get a chinese for tea and got a few beers for mike and a bottle of wine for me and took it back to the hotel to chill out in front of the TV. Fast forward 4 hours and i am on my second bottle of red wine and my head is spinning! Will spare you the gorey details but it was pretty messy!

Next morning and Oh My God i am so so hungover, dont think i ever remember feeling so ill the next day (note to self think i am allergic to red wine!) Couldnt leave the room actually couldnt move my head off the pillow until about 4 in the afternoon. Spent the day watching back to back law and order! (ps american day time TV is awesome,no wonder they are all po po's!!) Very boring for poor mike so in an attempt to redeem myself i dragged my sorry ass downtown to meet a friend of mikes for a few drinks (strawberry slush puppies for me!)

Then its time to move on and decided to book a couple of nights at Carlsbad. On our way to the hotel we stopped in a little town called La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya). Had some lunch there are saw loads of seals in the water and on the beach at one of the coves off the beach! Got 2 nights in Carlsbad then onto LA's Long Beach!

Checked in and then spent the afternoon driving round the area and got some food for our dinner and having been awake since 5am it was not a very eventful evening!