Day 3, 20th August 2011. Los Angeles - Visalia, California

Woke up super early at 2.40am this morning. I don't think I went back to sleep, I think I just laid there awake for ages. I don't know what time Gary woke up, but I think he slept a little longer than me. The first thing Gary did when he woke up was do some gym exercises using the hotel room furniture.

Gary exercising

We went for breakfast at 5.45am, Ihop of course, I loved that there was one so close to the hotel! I had Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Mmmmm Ihop :)

We went back to the hotel to get ready to start our tour with Trek America. I was so nervous to meet the people on our trip. We were meant to be meeting downstairs at 7.30am and Gary said we should go down early, I didn't want to but we did anyway, we went downstairs at 7.10am and there were already loads of people there because quite a few tours were starting that day. It was really awkward because nobody was talking to eachother, luckily I had Gary to talk to, we passed the time by trying to spot people from the photos we had seen on the Trek America website.

We met our tour leader, Art, and spent an hour or so filling in forms and going through all the stuff we would be doing. We met all the people in our group, there were 12 of us. Me and Gary, Kirsty, Donna, Volker, Peiter, Lauren, Shannon, Caroline, Aaron, Daniel and Abby whose plane was delayed so she would be joining is later in the day. Once we had sorted out all the paperwork we wet out to the van/trailer and loaded up all our stuff, luckily Gary and I could take our extra suitcase with no problems. We got in and started driving and it wasn't long before we stopped off to see some cool stuff.

Beverly Hils sign

Beverly Hills Hotel

Rodeo Drive sign

Our Trek America trailer

Driving down Rodeo drive

Chanel store

I was excited to see my first In-n-Out (although we didn't actually get to try it until the last day of the tour)

We then parked up and walked down to Hollywood Boulevard. It was very different than we expected, nowhere near as nice as it's pictured to be. There were loads of rappers trying to give you their CD's and ask you for money and just generally wasn't a nice area. It was cool to see all the landmarks there though, and the Walk of Fame stars on the floor.

Mickey Mouse star

Grauman's Chinese Theater

John Travolta star

El Capitan

Kodak Theatre

Disney Soda Fountain (unfortunatley we didn't have enough time to go in)

Outside Disney Soda Fountain

Olsen twins star

Don't Stop Beleivin'

One of the rap CD's Gary got given LOL

Got back in the van and drove up into the hills a bit to get a view of the 'Hollywood' sign and look out over Los Angeles.

After that we had a long drive to get to camp, I think it was actually not that long, like 4 hours maybe, but it was the first day of the trip so it seemed long at the time, but in reality we did way longer drives. We drove up the coast and got our first views of the Pacific ocean. We stopped at a supermarket for alcohol and any other bits we wanted to get too. We spent the drive that day mainly chatting in the van, getting to know people.

First view of the Pacific ocean

A road...

We got to camp at about 6.30pm and learned how to set up our tents, which was acually really easy. We stayed in a KOA Campsite in Visalia, California, and it was a really cute place for our first camping experience. The grass was nice and soft, the bathrooms were clean and close by and there was a swimming pool.

About to put up our tent for the first time

Gary went for a little swim

Art made fajitas for dinner which were really nice. We all sat and chatted and had drinks for the next few hours which was really nice. Art had to drive to pick Abby up from an airport so when she arrived we all introduced ourseves to her and told her she hadn't really missed much today.

Gary helping with dinner 

After we wandered over to the other group's camping area to meet them and chat to them and had a few more drinks over there before heading to bed at about 11pm. We were so tired, sleeping in the tent was really uncomfortable, because we had no pillows! Gary of course fell asleep straight away. I was kept awake even more by Gary's loud snoring and a really noisy train nearby!

Our first day was great, we had a really good time and were so excited about the next 9 weeks!

Day 2, 19th August 2011. Los Angeles.

Woke up at 3.40am, WIDE AWAKE. No chance of going back to sleep, I tried.  about 4.30am I gave in and got up and rang my mum, which woke Gary up with my apparently loud talking. Started just re-organising our stuff and found notes from my sister in our bags :)

My note

Managed to make ourselves wait until 7am to go and get breakfast, which of course had to be at Ihop, a first day in America tradition. I love American breakfasts, it was so nice to have real pancakes again, it made me so happy! We ordered so much food because we hadn't eaten for like a day!!

Ihop

Walking back to the Hacienda, it was grey and very un-California-ish.

A pretty flower

When we got back we got a taxi to the mall, it was about a 10 minute drive away. The first thing we had to do was get a USA sim-card for my phone which was really easy to do, we went straight into the T-Mobile shop and they sorted the whole thing out really easily for me. Then did a little bit of shopping (the first of many trips to Victoria's Secret)

The mall (Westfield Culver City)

Got a taxi back to the Hacienda, and spent the afternoon sitting round the pool, after getting stuck in the lift for 5 minutes first and wondering if we would ever get out (haha it was quite scary)

Pool at the Hacienda

Random photos around the hotel



We had an early dinner at Sizzler at about 6pm because we knew we would fall asleep really early. After dinner when we got back in the hotel, a list had gone up of the people on our trip. It was not the people we were expecting from the Trek America website so we were quite freaked out about that. I was feeling quite worried this evening, anxious about starting Trek tomorrow, doing something completely new and meeting people. Gary re-packed the bags and and we went too bed. I was scared of something in the night (I can't remember what) and climbed into Gary's single bed with him.

Day 1, 18th August 2011. London-Los Angeles

Woke up feeling so strange. This was definitely one of the weirdest morings of my life, being in my bedroom for the last time in over 3 months. Was super excited to start our adventure but so so scared. I don't know why.

Us outside my house about to go to the airport

We got to the airport at about 12.30pm. It was very sad saying goodbye to our mum's and dad's, lots of crying....

At Heathrow (terminal 5)

Checked in our bags, then went through security and ate as much as we could because Gary hates plane food. We also bought a load of food in Boots just before we got on the plane.

Gary getting ready to eat

Our plane

Goodbye London :) I was so ready for this!

And we're off...!

The sky

The flight wasn't too bad. It was the longest flight we had ever done at that point in our lives. It didn't pass too slowly, we watched a few films, read books and starved. The food we bought from Boots before the flight lasted us about 2 hours. We were so hungry for the rest of the flight.

America... :)

We landed at 7pm in LAX. When we were waiting to go through security they were playing Illuminations music (I don't know why, but I'm 100% sure that they was, has anyone else heard it??) ayway, that got me all excited to be in the USA! By the time we got out of the airport it was about 9pm. We had a big confusion waiting for the shuttle to pick us up and take us to the Hacienda Hotel.

YAY! Finally in the USA! Waiting for the hotel shuttle.

We stayed at the Hacienda, which is the hotel that Trek America books for us. It was OK, better than I expected, apart from the single beds!!

We had been up for 22 hours by the time we got to the room, so we went straight to sleep!