Days 1-3 (February 10-12, 2024): USA

The USA had just one stop for us:  California, of course! Upon landing on Saturday at 5PM, we got a rental car and headed north to the town of Oxnard (population 200,000), arriving just after 7PM.  The traffic on the freeway was brutal - it’s always brutal in LA!  We were really feeling the four-hour time change when we arrived, so we just had a snack in our room and went to bed.  

Sunday morning, though, the time change worked in our favour and we were up ‘n at ‘em bright and early:  we hit the breakfast buffet as soon as it opened at 7AM and at 8AM, we headed towards the beach in Oxnard.  Oxnard is the jumping off point to explore the Channel Islands National Park, just off the coast.  We opted not to do that, as it would have taken the entire day, and we had another plan in mind:  the Pacific Coastal Highway (PCH), which takes in a stunning section of US Route 1.  We’ve done US Route 1 from San Fran up to Oregon, but had never driven this part.  So after the Oxnard Beach and a few other sights, we waited for the PCH to open (storm damage has left it closed overnight for the past while).  When it opened at 9:40AM, we were among the first cars to take it!  It’s a 66KM route from Point Miguel (south of Oxnard), where we saw an amazing US military display of missiles, to the Santa Monica Pier.  The photos below will detail the drive.

After the PCH journey, we focused on Santa Monica.  I had visited Santa Monica in December 1989, at the end of my first semester at UBC in Vancouver, but Pam had never been.  For fans of “Three’s Company” in the 1970s, you would recognize scenes from the famous Santa Monica Pier from the opening credits of the show, when Jack Tripper, Chrissy, Janet, Larry and Mr. Roper were hanging out in bumper cars and the merry-go-round at the Pier.  But I digress!  We had a great a time exploring the Pier, Pallisades Park and the Third Street Promenade — Santa Monica’s top sights.

From there, we headed to Beverley Hills, to check out the famous and ultra-high-end Rodeo Drive, followed by the less-refined Hollywood, with its incredible Walk of Fame.  

We checked into a Courtyard by Marriott hotel near LAX just after 5PM and then returned our rental car, had a nice charcuterie board and wood-fired pizza as we watched the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl Game, and feel asleep early (that is, on Halifax time).

Today is Monday, and we leave North America today to head across the Pacific to Japan. We were awake brutally early (again, on Halifax time), had breakfast at the hotel’s bistro, and took an Uber to LAX at 9:30AM.  The American Express Centurion Lounge provided a nice solace while waiting to board. We had a long chat with one of the attendants about how expectations and rudeness of the travelling public have changed since the pandemic. Then it was off to board our Singapore Airlines flight, which left right on time. 

Farewell, North America!  God willing, we will touch your soil again in a month. 

The view of the golf course from our hotel window at sunrise.

The Residence Inn by Marriott Oxnard River Bridge is where we spent the night.  The hotel is comprised of a dozen or so small buildings, each with eight units, all situated on a golf course.

Oxnard and its environs are a showcase for all the amazing fruit and vegetables that we see back home as California-grown.  Miles and miles of seemingly perfect fields of a wide variety of crops.

In the distance are the offshore islands of Channel Islands National Park

Someone kindly built me a tee-pee at Oxnard Beach!

The beautiful beach at Oxnard was showing a ton of driftwood after the recent storms seen by this part of California.

“It’s my beach, so y’all can go on home now, hear?”

The marina at Port Hueneme is the jumping-off-point for exploring the Channel Islands National Park.

The Point Mugu Missile Park, just south of Oxnard, has a stunning - but scary - collection of American missiles, which were designed to be deployed from submarines and naval aircraft.  The black example on the left is a nuclear missile.  Daunting to see something like that, designed to destroy a major city, as we prepare to leave for Hiroshima, Japan.

Awaiting the reopening of the Pacific Coastal Highway (PCH) at 9:40AM, for the drive south to Santa Monica.

A typical scene along the Pacific Coastal Highway.

This is descriptively-named “Sandy Dune”, along the Pacific Coastal Highway, north of Malibu.

There were clear examples of the coastal damage from recent storms.

This is the typical and almost iconic California life-guard station that one sees all along the California coast. 

The beautiful rock formations at El Matador State Beach, north of Malibu.

Malibu is a place we have always wanted to see!  Playground of the Hollywood famous.

The amazing thing about Malibu is the way homes are built right on the edge of the open Pacific.

We couldn’t get close to it, but the eighth home into this line of homes in Malibu once belonged to Stan Laurel, as of Laurel and Hardy fame.

More examples of coastal homes in Malibu.  And, on the hilltop, you can see one of the many hilltop mansions overlooking Malibu.

The Malibu Pier made for a great walk.

The tranquil wooden pier in Malibu.

Malibu

Famous Pepperdine University sits on the hills overlooking Malibu.  What a place to go to university!

And everywhere, there are people fishing.  Like this brave guy, who was fishing from a slippery rock formation off the coast.

The crowds on the Santa Monica Pier, which is essentially a 365-day-per-year carnival!

The Santa Monica Pier, looking in towards the beach from the end of the pier.  

From Santa Monica’s Pier, looking north over the wide beach of Santa Monica.

The Santa Monica merry-go-round, built in 1916, is a National Historic Site.

Santa Monica’s Pier is home to what is perhaps the world’s classiest and oldest merry-go-round.  It’s even a National Historic Site.  

There is no highway in America as famous as Route 66.  The route ends in Pallisades Park, Santa Monica.

The Third Street Pedestian Mall in Santa Monica.

At the end of the Third Street Promenade is a Tesla showroom.  It was so neat to look at the cars up close.  And trust me:  there are more Teslas on the road in LA than you would ever imagine!  They are literally everywhere.

Tesla Bot is a robot created in 2023 for Tesla’s production line. They used a human replica as it proves more useful for handling the tools used on the assembly line. 

Some of the gleaming towers of LA’s central business district.

Another example of LA’s gleaming architecture.

 

It was fun — if not surreal and uber shallow — to drive up and down Rodeo Drive in Beverley Hills to see how people with too much money to spend on themselves in a starving world like to shop. Hmm, I guess this is a tad judgmental, though!  Pam captured this section of the Drive - click on this hyperlink:

A typical block on Rodeo Drive in Beverley Hills.

A very loud and crude group of anti-fur demonstrators were making a big rukus in front of Louis Vuitton. 

It wasn’t on Rodeo Drive, but it sure could have been:  we passed this Steinway piano showroom.  For those who don’t know, Steinway is to the piano world what Lamborghini is to the auto world! They range from $70,000 USD to $175,000 USD, depending on size!  So only in LA would you find such a pricey beast in… PINK!!

Famous Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

Hollywood’s famous Chinese Theater.

The cast of Star Trek has made their mark in front of the Chinese Theater.

Lee Majors - AKA the Six Million Dollar Man - was a big part of my 1970s TV upbringing.

Here is a sampling of some of the 2600 celebrities who have been honoured with a star on the Walk of Fame. The Walk goes on for blocks, but its epicentre is Hollywood boulevard at Highland Avenue. 

And, of course, it makes total sense that Mickey Mouse would have his own star!

Jimmy Kimmel Live is filmed at the El Capitan Entertainment Centre on Hollywood Boulevard. This iconic building, which used to be the Hollywood Masonic Temple (zoom in to note the inscription on the top of the building) has stood since 1921, and is right by the Dolby Theater, which has been known for hosting the Academy Awards since 2001.

The iconic 1956 Capitol Records Building in LA was the place to be for the music industry back in the day.  An amazing design for a building of the mid-50s!

Although time did not permit us to explore the Hollywood Bowl, we did pass it.

Last week, an atmospheric river stalled over California, bringing torrential rain for days and causing a lot of flooding.  Our California weather, however, could not have been more perfect:  sunny skies and a comfy temperature in the high teens!  This sliver of moon seemed to bid us a happy ending to our exploration here, as we returned our Hertz rental and waited for an Uber back to our hotel.