My trip to Los Angeles

After the wonderful conference, I headed down to Monterey, and then down the beautiful pacific coast highway to Los Angeles (clicking on any of those links will take you to my pictures of that portion of my trip). The pacific coast highway was not the fastest way to LA, but it was by far the most picturesque. I had to force myself to stop stopping and taking pictures, the scenery was just amazing. Yes, there were those windy roads in the hills & mountains that you see in the movies, and yes, it goes on for 63 miles, but it was so worth it. If you get the chance to travel down that road, take it. (oh, and if you happen to come across a LG bluetooth headset at one of the vista points, I'd appreciate you picking it up and sending it on to me).

I stayed over in Simi Valley, which is about 30 miles to the West of LA, but it gave me a central location to LA and the beaches, so I was quite happy with it. I arrived there on the Friday night, in time to head to the movies, so off I want to see "StarDust". Saturday, I did the 10k race, then tootled around for a while (not having much of a choice, since the road back had been closed by the police, so I ended up being detoured through many LA suburbs), before heading out to dinner with a friend (The Lisa) and her boyfriend.

On Sunday, I decided that I really needed a rest day, so I hung around the hotel pool for a while, before heading to the movies to see "War", and " The Bourne Ultimatum".

On Monday, I decided that I really needed to hit the beach, so after looking at the map, I decided that Malibu sounded like a good place to be. 45 minutes later, after driving through more hills and narrow roads, some of which were 1/2 closed (wasn't this how Alf Roberts died in Coronation Street?), I made it to Malibu.

The beaches there were wonderful. I lay out for a while, and ended up playing beach volleyball for over an hour, before deciding to head back to the hotel. That night I drove out to Sunset Boulevard and had a really nice Mexican meal, before heading back to the hotel to pack for the long trip home on Tuesday.

All in all, a wonderful holiday / vacation, especially given that I hadn't had one for quite a while, thanks to all who either offered advice (Ian, Lisa), or were a part of the trip (too many to mention).