Travelling From Coast To Coast August 2023: Day 1 - Travel to Los Angeles

[moosha]

Day 1 - Travel Day: Monday 7th August 2023

Mat and I had set alarms for 5 am which gave us two hours before the taxi arrived. I was mostly ready in terms of packing and having everything laid out so I thought this would give me plenty of time to get set for the day in a more relaxed way. Unfortunately that didn’t quite work out for two reasons and their names start with S and F.

Freya had pretty much packed her bag the night before but needed a metaphorical boot up the bum to get moving and get ready. She had said she wanted a full 90 minutes to get ready but of course when it came to it, she wouldn’t get out of bed and then once she was up she blamed me for not getting her up early. Teenagers. Once she got going though she was all nice and ready in plenty of time even if she was punctuating getting ready with groans of ‘It’s too early’ and ‘Oh it’s bad.’

Seren on the other hand had not packed her bag, and was not ready in any way by the time she went to bed the night before. She had also stayed up way too late as her boyfriend had been over for the evening and he went home late. Before that she’d been pretty much working full time since breaking up from school. So it was a good job I had given myself extra time as I needed to ‘oversee’ her sorting her things out and packing which as she has ADHD and was very tired was more hands-on than I perhaps had time for.

Luckily all four cases had been closed for the final time before departure the previous evening so besides getting myself ready I just had to shower, shuffle my makeup and essential liquids around in my hand luggage and drink two coffees, both of which were lukewarm when I drank them because of the faffing around. This was a shame as Mat had made me the second one because the first one wasn’t hot but I didn’t manage to solve that problem the second time around either with being distracted by what needed doing.

We managed to all be ready for the taxi’s arrival which was at a minute or two after 7 am. By the time we’d all loaded up it was 7.10 am when we set off. As we got settled in, the taxi driver told us there was a lot of traffic on the M1 and M25 so he was planning to go cross country instead. The journey from our house to Heathrow takes 45 minutes on a good day but today it took almost double that.

Seren fell asleep pretty much as soon as we drove away. Amusingly enough she woke up briefly at one point when we happened to be passing the back of her school which is 40 minutes away from our house. She opened her eyes, said ‘school’ and then went back to sleep. She swears it was because she falls asleep on the bus to school most mornings and her body knows when to wake up so she doesn’t miss getting off.

By the time we got to Heathrow everyone but me was asleep and I found it amusing watching their heads bob around in the car. I felt a bit car sick which only happens when we go on holiday, I think because I try and do my notes. So I didn’t do that and just sat there looking out of the window for the whole journey which was fine with me after rushing around to get ready and being the teenager taxi for the previous two weeks.

I guess I had forgotten to take into account the fact that our flight was on a Monday morning and so hadn’t really anticipated the journey to the airport taking so long. I forgot that just because we’d be in holiday mode it didn’t mean the rest of the South of England would be. I’m glad we got the taxi to pick us up super early though so we wouldn’t be rushing, or so I thought.

It had kind of started as one of ‘those’ mornings, you know where you squeeze too much toothpaste out and bump into the door handle and I had a brief thought that this wasn’t a great start to travel day. But I told myself it would all be fine when we got going. After the excessive traffic, I reset and affirmed to myself that everything would be smooth sailing from that point.

So at 8.30 am we unloaded from the taxi. The driver passed all our suitcases over and I distributed them to everyone. As he passed over the last one he said ‘That one’s heavy, must be yours.’ He gets me.



It was lovely and busy as usual in terminal 5 and we headed to bag drop. The machine wouldn’t let us do what we needed to do so we joined a short queue where a lady checked our documents and then sent us to the automated bag drop lines. It’s kind of amazing how much things have changed in like five years as we saw a grand total of two ground staff manning the whole area while we checked our bags in. We had to wait about five minutes to get to a kiosk and while waiting we noticed a bag had been left in our line. The woman in the queue next to us said ‘you’d best report that’ so I went back to the woman checking passports and told her. The other member of staff happened to be passing so she called him over. I explained to him again and he whisked the bag away.

Already fed up with having their photos taken:



We checked our luggage in and I defended my poor suitcase to Mat as it was ‘only’ 19.6kg so well under the 23kg weight limit. He was doing all the button pressing and he assigned two of our four cases to him and two to me, so the girls had no checked luggage. He didn’t realise this would turn out to be a mistake.



We headed to security and despite the screens indicating security was busy (three stick people illuminated), we were at the security gates as soon as we could walk through the queue to them. So security was a walk-on. We got to the gates and I took the lead and Freya headed to the gate next to me. I scanned and went through. She scanned and got rejected. The staff member came over and said she needed to go to the assistance line. Seren had the same result. Mat, who hasn’t yet scanned, said he would queue up with both of them as by this point I was the only one the other side of the gates.

They queued for a few minutes at the manned security line and when they got to the lady, she said they had to go back into the departure hall and queue somewhere there for special assistance. I had the choice of waiting just the other side of the security gates for them before completing security, or heading through security alone. The benefit of going through security now was that I needed a wee and of course I could do that once I was through. The downside was that I had two bags of liquids with me as Mat had packed all of his in his suitcase so the plan was he was going to take my extra bag through security as his allocation. I ummed and aahed for a couple of minutes and then decided to proceed through armed with my two bags of liquids. I reasoned that once it was in the tray with my handbag and hand luggage it would look like two persons’ hand luggage, ie me and my child (who unfortunately wasn’t here yet.)

I queued for about ten minutes and when I got to the trays, the security staff member asked me how many people I was travelling with. Plan scuppered straight away. I must have a guilty look about me. I explained that I had gone through the gate before the rest of my family and that I was stuck with my husband’s liquids while he sorted out the issue with the girls’ boarding passes. She very nicely said that me having two bags of liquids wasn’t an issue for her but it could get flagged as it went though the scanner and that could cause me a problem. She therefore suggested I hang back and wait for them. As I really really needed to pee by this time, I suggested that I shove it all into one liquids bag and she said that would be even better. So that is what I did and she wasn’t bothered that the bag wouldn’t close.

Amazingly I didn’t beep as I went through the arch scanner which is generally unheard of for me as I have 21 piercings and wear about nine metal hair grips so being able to walk straight though and not go through the body scanner was at least one success for me today.

With all my belongings back I legged it to the toilet. I then decided to head to Boots to get water and snacks for the flight since it was still just me all present and correct through security. It wasn’t ideal navigating the little aisles in Boots with my big holdall but I figured I was being productive and trying to get ahead a bit since things had derailed a little. I wasn’t sure what the girls would want as snacks so I texted Freya. None of them knew what they wanted and she was moaning about being stuck in the queue still. I grabbed a few bits and water for all, paid and left.

We usually have Love Hearts for landing when we fly but I hadn’t been very organised this year (as always). They didn’t have them here so I went across to WH Smith but they didn’t have them either plus there was a big queue halfway around the shop.

Mat texted to say they were about to be seen and at this point I realised I hadn’t had any breakfast so I headed down to Starbucks. Luckily there wasn’t a queue so I grabbed myself my go-to Starbucks breakfast of the Beyond sausage breakfast sandwich and a medium black Americano.





While I was waiting for my coffee and sandwich, the rest of my family appeared behind me. Apparently the problem had been that when Mat assigned the girls to have no luggage it flagged them so note to self, don’t do that again. We now had 40 minutes until our gate was to be announced which is the point where Mat will want to drop everything and rush to the gate.

Cue a lot of faffing as the girls went to get more snacks. We now had way too many bags of popcorn as I had also got them some, but oh well. Mat then went to grab me a sandwich from Pret for the plane as I always get hungry by the end of the flight and the sandwich tea they offer is always grim.



Flying BA with Mat has the benefit of lounge access as he’s a silver member. We’d had to cancel our previous Easter holiday to Paris the night before due to ‘passport issues’ (don’t ask) and then our next family holiday had been due to take place two weeks before this trip, to Glasgow and Edinburgh. However, that too had not gone ahead as planned as Seren couldn’t get the time off work at the last minute (it was a whole thing) so Mat stayed behind with her, and Freya and I went just the two of us. The trip had been planned around seeing my favourite band Red Hot Chili Peppers so I was always going to go, but Mat not being with us meant no lounge.

Now with 30 minutes until the gate announcement I was concerned a chill in the lounge wasn’t even going to be third time lucky. Seren and Freya had gone off to Accessorize as Seren had a gift card to spend there that she’d got for her birthday months before. While they were up there I realised I’d popped the wrong gift card into her bag and must have left the Accessorize one at home. But as she’s a shopaholic she bought something in there anyway with her own money.

We hopped on the little train to the B gates and deposited the girls in the departure area before Mat and I headed up to the BA lounge. I’d not been to the B gate lounge before and it was nice and chill in there.



We realised that we hadn’t got any travel sickness medicine for Seren so Mat popped back down to Boots to get some while I got a drink. Unfortunately there is no pharmacy at the B gate Boots so we agreed that Mat would just catch the sick in his hands if it happened.

I got a gin (I chose Tanquerey 10) but unfortunately it was of course Schweppes tonic so it didn’t taste great but it was nice to relax for the 15 minutes we were there before the board said ‘Go to gate.’ Shame about the unfortunate detail on the table. It was clean honestly.



We restroomed and then headed back down to collect the girls and wander along to B gate 38. We spotted the rifraff as we were coming down the escalator:







It was only ten minutes or so before they started boarding group one and then we followed along behind as part of group two.

Plane:





The plane was newly refurbished so that was a nice treat. As usual, being poors who travel economy but get to board first because of Mat’s Executive Club status, we had the economy cabin to ourselves for a while as of course everyone else boarding first was in Business or Premium. We were at the front of economy (the row behind extra legroom) but far back in the plane in row 41.

A nice cabin crew lady offered to take a photo of us all together when she saw me taking photos of the others.





We got settled and everyone else boarded. We were all ready to depart by our takeoff time of 11.40 am but it took a while for us to get a slot so it was 12.20 before we were in the air. It was quite bumpy going up which I didn’t love.

I caught up on some notes (I always make myself do that at the start of a flight before I start watching anything) and the girls had a look through all of the available movies and TV.

They brought the drinks round and I got a Bacardi and Diet Coke and a water and Freya got a Diet Coke. Seren was already asleep by the time the drinks trolley came down (which was less than half an hour after take off.) The lovely cabin crew lady asked if I wanted wine with my meal and I chose Merlot. She gave me two, bless her. I commented on how many drinks I had lined up on my tray and she said, ‘It’s a long flight.’

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I didn’t realise but Mat had also taken a wine for me as he wouldn’t be drinking today with driving later. I didn’t fancy wine so we decided to take them all with us for him to drink when we got back from days out when he would have been driving all day.

I couldn’t choose a movie to watch with my drink straight away as all the films I liked I felt I’d seen too many times to concentrate and all the films I hadn’t seen didn’t really appeal. I settled on The Big Lebowski because it’s an LA film and because I fancied a laugh. Great film.

Because we’d ordered vegan meals, we got them quite a bit before everyone else as is standard. The hot meal was ratatouille with rice. It was fine but didn’t really have any flavour. Honestly, the vegan meals used to be good before the pandemic but the last three years they’ve been rubbish. Not sure whether that’s the same with the regular meals or just a treat for us vegans. I ate mine and then Freya’s as we only order her one so the rest of us can have the contents of it as she’s a) not vegan herself and b) anti-plane food.





I only ever have the hot part of the meal as the rest doesn’t appeal so I ate both ratatouilles and Mat had all four quinoa chia pots. He also took the wrapped vegan pistachio cakes to have later.

I was still really hungry after my ratatouille and rice so ate the two bags of salt and vinegar Proper Chips I’d bought in Boots earlier. After they’d cleaned away the food and tea and coffee, they dimmed the lights.

There was still around seven hours to go so after my film finished I caught up on notes again. Mat and Seren were asleep. Freya was already getting antsy after watching Scream VI which she hadn’t seen before and had loved, and she also watched Mean Girls for the 3672nd time. Seren started Avatar but kept falling asleep, then watched Lilo and Stitch, the Breakfast Club and 17 Again, plus episodes of The Office. She also kept falling asleep.



I got a Bacardi and Diet Coke from the back of the plane and watched What’s Love Got To Do With It? which I’d seen before but it still made me cry and I think it’s a really good film.

Freya was getting pretty fed up so we took another walk to the back of the plane and got a Diet Coke each. They’d randomly given me two Bacardis when I got the first so I had my Diet Coke with the second.

After my second film finished I did some more notes and then watched Crazy Stupid Love which I still really enjoy even after seeing it too many times but it hasn’t really aged well. Still a nice treat to see Ryan Gosling for a couple of hours of course.

I ate my Pret baguette (tapenade, sundried tomatoes, rocket and apparently there was avocado in there too) but couldn’t finish it so handed it to Mat.

Both girls had headaches so they had ibuprofen. Freya watched the first two Harry Potter films and the girls played some games on the entertainment system. Mat and Seren also played Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? on there.

By this point there was two hours of the flight left. Freya was pretty fed up but she kept napping. The rest of us were doing okay but it definitely felt really long.

I couldn’t focus on a fourth film so watched a Mammoth Club video I’d downloaded to my iPad but couldn’t even really focus on that so I did notes and went over the plans for the next few days on my phone.

Finally we were on our descent into LAX. That couple of hours extra is really noticeable and we were all so ready to get off the plane.

Confession time: I was actually a bit worried about going to LA. I’ve been on the Los Angeles subreddits for probably a year or so which helped me plan the trip but there are a loooot of posts about crime, homelessness everywhere, terrible driving, traffic, coyotes / mountain lions / rattlesnakes hanging out especially in Griffith Park, and LA generally being a craphole. I love so much of LA culture; most of my favourite movies are set / filmed there and the band that has been in my life since I was 13 are a Los Angeles band so the idea of being there made me really excited but I was also a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. I had planned all of the trip by myself, hadn’t really even had a chance to fully form all of the plans because we were packing in a lot, and I felt a big sense of responsibility for everyone else. I’m a people pleaser and while there would be things in the trip catering to everyone else’s loves and interests, I really felt like I was taking on the role of making sure everyone else had a good time. I always do feel that way but this was a completely new city / state to us in that I haven’t been to California since I was a teenager and Mat has been to LA once on a work trip for 24 hours or so but the girls have never been. I kind of felt like because it was my idea I was taking on responsibility for everyone’s happiness during the trip.

Anyway, as we were making our descent I actually had a moment of ‘why are we doing this and not just going to Orlando where everything is familiar?’ It was sort of a ‘what have I done?’ situation. It didn’t help that it was a super bumpy ten minutes or so as we came into land.

Once we were finally off the plane at about 3.15 pm (gosh darn it, that bit between hitting the tarmac and walking out of the plane door takes forever doesn’t it?) we went into the terminal…



….and basically walked into a mass of people all joining the lines for immigration from different directions. There were no signs, no staff and basically it was the blind leading the blind trying to find the international arrivals queue rather than the US arrivals. Eventually we came to a staff member who was barking which line was which and we followed some other English people to make sure. Not long after we got in the line, an announcement was made that immigration staff due to go home at 4 pm were expected to stay past their finishing time. It was so crowded in the immigration hall and the line was moving pretty slowly. Freya was having a strop because both Seren and I have US data roaming included in our plan and her tariff randomly doesn’t even though they’re both on my O2 family account so she couldn’t use her phone in the line.

The people in front of us asked a staff member while in the queue if it was always this busy and he said no, they’d just had 6,000 people land at once. Perfect timing from us as usual.

It took about an hour and 45 minutes to get through immigration and for some reason I was the only one who didn’t have to do fingerprints (probably because I’m special.) The lady was nice which was a relief after Mat got told off by the guy we had the previous year in Orlando. She welcomed us to LA and told us to have a good one.

Our cases were already off the carousel of course by the time we got through which is the only benefit of immigration taking two years .We walked them through towards the exit (known as LAXit apparently) and could not find any signage for rental cars. I could tell this airport was pretty rubbish already and deserves its reputation as a stinker. Everything is just more difficult than it needs to be, especially for such a major airport, as we also found on our return trip.

We regrouped in a tiny foyer that heads out of the terminal and everyone abandoned me to use the restroom which wasn’t ideal as it was busy and I was stood there taking up a lot of space with four cases and everyone’s hand luggage. There was an upwards slope to a little exit door out onto the street where all the transportation left from and it was backed up with people struggling to get their luggage up it and then very helpfully stopping dead as soon as they went through the doors, looking for where they needed to be. We gritted our teeth and joined them all.

Once out on the street, trying to find where we were supposed to be for rental cars was difficult. There was a map on the wall which wasn’t particularly helpful and it was Freya who worked out which direction we were supposed to go in in the end. I knew we had to take a shuttle bus to Avis and after wandering along the row of bus stops for a few minutes that aren’t signed and not seeing anything resembling the bus we were looking for, Mat asked someone who worked at the airport who was waiting for a bus and he very kindly gave us a stop number. We wandered up there and luckily there was an Avis bus waiting. I had read on Google reviews that the Avis shuttle bus was the least convenient and quick of all of the rental car buses (I think some of the other companies share a bus) and was worried to the point that I considered trying to change rental companies which isn’t easy when it’s part of a BA flydrive booking. But so far so good with there being a bus waiting for it.

There was a staff member loading all the luggage on and she was super efficient, commanding and strong. She made sure all the luggage came on the bus before the people which was kind of the only way to do it with it being very busy and there being very little people space. It was very crowded on there, so much so that when we made a second terminal stop after we got on she couldn’t take anymore passengers.

The ride to Avis was not long but it felt it with all being squished onto a hot bus. The bus made two stops at Avis; the first being Avis Preferred which we have been for years as we always use them but ironically they’re one of those companies I definitely do not ‘prefer.’ We’ve had several hiccups with them over the years where they’ve ripped us off and we’ve had to get money back after the holiday but we still keep coming back because of their partnership with BA who are another company I don’t love using but grin and bear it because of Mat’s Executive Club perks. I think I would really struggle to get him on a transatlantic flight without priority boarding as he has anxiety about the whole getting on the plane bunfight and having overhead locker space. There are other benefits of course such as lounge access and Avios points which save us money on future bookings.

Anyway we got off the bus as ‘Preferred’ members and our name was not on the board. Different city, same issue. So Mat went inside, handed the guy our booking number and when he went to apply the Avis Preferred that should have already been on there, it magically erased the fact that this was a prepaid booking and therefore he was after payment for it. Mat came out and said ‘was this prepaid?’ Um yes it’s part of the BA flydrive as per usual and has been paid for a couple of months. After five or ten minutes of the girls and I watching people come and go successfully while standing outside the office, eventually it was sorted out and Mat triumphantly exited with a space number for our car. We all trotted up there and loaded the luggage into our assigned car, a dark grey Toyota Rav 4. We all thought the car was absolutely fine; in our experience in the past few years ‘group F’ has sometimes meant that even though you’re paying for a (smaller) SUV that’s supposed to accommodate four suitcases, in reality the model varies a lot and so therefore does the amount of boot space. We don’t need a big flashy car but we do need to be able to fit three plus weeks’ worth of luggage in the trunk. So we were feeling very relieved once us and all our stuff were in the car. Off we go.

Or not, as we couldn’t actually find the keys. It wasn’t in any of the usual hiding places such as the sun visor or glove compartment. We hunted around for a few minutes and Mat even stopped an American passer-by who was with his family and on their way to get into their own vehicle to ask for suggestions as to where the keys might be. This ‘embarrassing dad’ behaviour caused the girls to slump down in their seats cringing. With no luck, Mat headed back to the office and returned a few minutes later with a staff member. The staff member also couldn’t find the keys, so told Mat to head back with him to change to another vehicle. When Mat came back, he first went to check the other cer had keys and then we moved everything across to the new vehicle for attempt two. This car was also a Toyota Rav 4 and was dark red and the interior was dirtier than the other one but by this point we really didn’t care. I liked the fact that it was red because it was much easier to find in parking lots etc.

We were finally on our way, heading through the Avis exit barrier at 6 pm, about three hours after we had landed. I loaded up the Los Angeles playlist, plugged our AirBnb’s address into google maps on my phone and we were off. When I’d put the plans into the google doc that was basically the bible for this trip, maps had estimated the drive to the house in Toluca Lake would take an hour to an hour and 30 minutes at the time I’d expected us to be making the journey. Taylor Swift was playing at SoFi Stadium nearby in the city that night which I didn’t think would help with the traffic.

As I mentioned in the pre-trip update, the main reason I had booked this particular AirBnb was because it had a private pool that I knew that Freya in particular would love to use since there wasn’t going to be that much swimming time on this trip. The pool was only available for use until 8 pm each day and with us being busy in the daytime while we were here, I was keen to make sure we actually got some use out of it. Therefore I was hoping the girls would have time for a quick dip when we arrived tonight while I unpacked. So that was really the only issue with time at this point.

Anyway, when I loaded the address into google maps as we were leaving the airport, I was pleasantly surprised to find the journey was expected to take about 50 minutes. I think the no-traffic driving time is about half an hour so this wasn’t bad at all. I think that was the benefit of not leaving the airport until after 6; we’d missed the worst of the commuter traffic.

We set off and Mat, who had been a bit stressed about driving in Los Angeles, was actually surprisingly quite chill. Seren immediately fell asleep. The infamous 405 didn’t seem that bad and the other drivers actually seemed better and more considerate than I’d imagined from what I’d read on Reddit. We’d experienced way worse on I-4. At that point I relaxed. But the overwhelming thing I remember from that journey is the scenery. I don’t know why I stupidly hadn’t expected the Santa Monica Mountains to be there but there they were just looking all beautiful in the early evening sun. Absolutely stunning.





And the palm trees and the buildings I could see on the other side of the road were also beautiful to me. You know how you go to some places and you immediately love them and other places you think ‘well it’s lovely but it’s just not really for me’, well this was 100% the former. I fell in love with Los Angeles on that first journey from the airport.





As we were getting close to the house, I knew I’d made a good decision booking a place in Toluca Lake. The streets were residential and quiet and the houses were beautiful. It felt like a place I would totally want to live in. A minute or two before we got to the actual street that we were staying on, I looked to my right and immediately recognised the Retro Dairy Mart and Tapas & Salsa buildings from La La Land that I knew were only a five minute walk from the AirBnb and were on my list of places to visit while we were here. I had this wave of excitement go through me; the realisation that we were here where so much of my favourite music and movies were made. It’s remarkable to me that these places just casually exist here like they’re no big deal when they absolutely are to people like me. This was absolutely not the last time I would have this excited feeling at experiencing places like this; it happened pretty much multiple times a day while we were in LA and sometimes it made me emotional to the point of tears. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

We turned onto the street we were staying in just before 7 pm and again it was a lovely quiet residential street. Our host had told us that there was plenty of street parking and there was. We managed to park up right by the property.



It had taken us a moment to work out exactly where the house was as it was set back from the rest of the houses on the street and behind a large gate. It being set back makes sense as it’s an ADU basically in his garden. But having been up for 21 hours at this point I was initially a little confused. I pulled up the entry instructions on the AirBnb app and we managed to unlock the large gates at the top of the driveway with no problems. There was then a second keypad for the door to the house and again, no issues with getting in. We took a quick look at the pool area before we went inside and it was just as impressive in real life as it had been in the photos that had made me book the property really quickly.





The house was very nicely decorated and we were happy with it. It was cosy in the main living area but no smaller than expected and there were two bedrooms. I didn’t take any photos of the interior and I just checked whether Mat did and this is the only one he has. No idea why.



We brought in all the luggage and I took the girls’ cases to the room at the back. Freya wanted to swim and as I mentioned, we had to be out of the pool by 8 pm. I rummaged in the case for a bikini for her and she got ready while I unpacked some of her stuff. The plan was to get something to eat and pop to a supermarket after the girls had swam so I needed to get out something she could throw on once she was out of the pool so we could head out quickly.





We had a slight issue in that Seren had woken up grumpy after sleeping in the car and she didn’t want to swim. Freya wasn’t keen to swim without her. So things got a little bit heated as we tried to encourage Seren to at least dip her feet in the water, knowing that the longer she moaned and didn’t get ready, the less time in the pool there would be for Freya. I mentioned it earlier but Seren has ADHD and she can get very single-minded as part of that so trying to get her to budge from what she decides is the plan can be difficult. It also means she sometimes isn’t considerate to what others are feeling or would like to do. As she’s got older and more independent it’s kind of made things harder as now she is old enough to make her own decisions and stay behind etc when she doesn’t want to do something, whereas when she was younger she knew that wasn’t an option. We did have issues with this quite a bit on the trip but I’m going to try and gloss over it besides occasions where it might have caused a bit of a derailment of the plans.

Eventually she reluctantly went out to the pool with Freya but they were only out there ten or 15 minutes or so as she was still grumpy and tired. It was all a bit stressful but ultimately the pool was used so at least we had already got some value out of it. We quickly got changed and headed back out to the car as we needed to get some water and snacks. The girls really wanted to go to Trader Joe’s as we’d never been to one before, and the one five minutes drive from the house closed at 9 pm so we needed to be speedy.

As we were pulling away in the car, the owner of the property came out to walk his dog so we gave him a wave and were on our way. That was actually the only time we saw him which is kind of interesting since we were staying so close to his house and sharing a driveway etc but works perfectly for both parties I think when they’re trying to get on with their lives and you’re trying to get on with your vacation.

We drove along Riverside Drive which is one of the main streets in the area and where stores and restaurants are located, and pulled up at Trader Joe’s. The little car park was just around the back and there were available spaces. We headed inside. It was small but very cute and surprisingly busy for 8.10 pm on a Monday night. I guess everyone in the area is a TJ’s fan. We all needed to find something we could eat as a snack breakfast before our planned early morning hike to the Hollywood sign. Seren got some dried fruit strips, I got some grapes and some spicy cashews and Freya chose some blondie brownies. Mat had made the decision to eat the pistachio cake bars he’d kept back from the aeroplane meals for his breakfast so he didn’t need anything. We also grabbed some water. This little Trader Joe’s didn’t stock really anything besides food and drink so the toiletry items we needed would have to wait until the following day since we cba to go anywhere else tonight. I usually need to buy contact lens solution on our first night but serendipitously today was the last day of my 30 day lenses so I could bin them tonight and start a new pair in the morning thus negating the need for solution tonight.

I took these two excellent photos of the store while we were in there. I was tired. Also it doesn’t look very busy in these photos but for some reason no one was in the frozen aisle. The other aisles were much busier.





Seren bought a birthday card for her boyfriend as it would be his birthday while we were away and we decided to deal with stamps and sending it another day as we were too tired to think about that right now. We headed to the checkouts and a lovely friendly lady who had been chatting to a colleague announced warmly ‘I can help you over here’ and took us to an empty till. She chatted to us about our trip, welcoming us to LA (we honestly found all of the people we met in the city to be so friendly and welcoming) and we told her we were going to Orlando after our two weeks in Los Angeles. She said ‘Are you going to the Epcot Center?’ which was adorable. She then offered the girls some Trader Joe’s lollipops and they enthusiastically replied that they would like some please, sounding like a pair of five year olds and nodding their heads. Our lovely cashier threw a whole bunch of them in the shopping bag, bless her.

All done at Trader Joe’s and vowing it was our new favourite supermarket (after Target of course), we got back in the car and drove the one minute down the road to Bob’s Big Boy for some food. We’d wanted to visit this iconic restaurant and tonight seemed the perfect opportunity since a) it was open until midnight, b) it was five minutes from the house and c) burgers are the perfect end-of-travel-day food. We parked up in the spacious car park (Mat’s biggest driving stress going into the trip was where we would park at every stop so when a place has an easy big car park like this, he’s happy.) We went inside and it was pretty busy. We were quoted a ten minute wait for a table and took a seat in the waiting area.



No sooner had we sat down than a host appeared to take us to our table. We were given the last booth in the row along the window.



As I said it was busy and I think that was at least partly because there don’t seem to be that many restaurants in the area (or even in LA to be fair as we’d learn later) that stay open past 9 pm, particularly in the week. There were people coming in wearing Harry Potter t-shirts and robes who had obviously finished their days at Universal Studios which is less than 10 minutes drive away.

Bob’s Big Boy is pretty iconic as it’s been there since 1949, has been used in films such as Heat and is a proper classic American diner. I loved the interior decor and exterior classic architecture. They even have a Beatles Booth where The Beatles sat when they dined there in 1965. Unfortunately that booth was occupied the entire time we were here but it’s the back right one in this photo.



Seren’s favourite band is The Beatles so she was excited to be here and very excited to see these photos on the wall.



Mat, Seren and I ordered vegan burgers. They came with lettuce, tomato and red onion and Seren asked for hers without the lettuce and tomato. We each got a salad included with the meal which was pretty tasty. I think we had italian dressing as that was the only vegan option.



Freya wanted eggs as they do all-day breakfast here. She ordered two sunny-side-up eggs with toast and hash browns. They have flavoured Cokes (vanilla, chocolate and cherry) which are ‘classic fountain drinks from the 50s’ according to their menu. Freya and I got cherry and Mat got vanilla. They were very sweet. Seren had an apple juice (actually she had two.)



When the food arrived I realised I wasn’t actually very hungry as I think I had gone through that and was just tired now. For me it was more about coming here and seeing the place. Neither Seren or I could finish our burgers and with hindsight we should have just ordered two between the three of us.



Mat and I discussed it at the time; we always over-order in the US so reminded ourselves to do better going forward which we did with mixed results. The food itself was fine, definitely not among the best of the trip but it fulfilled its purpose and like I said it was more about going there for me than the food. Everyone else enjoyed what they ate and Mat hoovered up as much of the leftover burgers as he could manage. Freya didn’t like the hash browns as they were American style, like a pile of shredded potato rather than what we’re used to at McDonalds etc.



While we were sitting there we overheard the people who were sat behind us chatting to their server. One of the guys was saying that he had been in Walk The Line as a member of Johnny Cash’s band and was (I guess because of that) in Joaquin Phoenix’s band. They were also talking about the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. It definitely made it more real that we were in LA.

Before we left, Seren wanted to buy a t-shirt so she and Freya went over to the merch stand which was also the take-out desk and spoke to the cool young guy running it. To be fair it was possible she didn’t actually want a t-shirt and just wanted to talk to him. She bought this shirt which was definitely one of the nicest designs and I may well steal it, and she also bought a couple of postcards. Honestly money burns a hole in her pocket I’m sure.













We drove the five minutes or so back to the house and while the girls got ready for bed, I put away as much of their stuff as possible so it wouldn’t be hanging over our heads the next day. They then crashed and Mat and I unpacked our own stuff. Amusingly while I was unpacking I found Seren’s Accessorize gift card so I had had it after all. Once we were all unpacked we fell into bed around 12.30 am, having been up for about 27 and a half hours.

[Dutchdisneyfan]

Wow what a long day!
Can't wait to read your trip report it is going to be epic.

[sunshines]

I am planning an LA trip with my two dds in June... Love your photos, as always. I'll be reading along as I plan.

[Buggles94]

Wow - an impressive travel day! A swim, shop and meal out! We can't wait to get back to the West Coast next year. Absolutely love it. Completely understood the difficulties trying to find the Avis shuttle bus though! We need to find it again next year so any tips welcomed please

[Magicsky]

Lovely trip report, looking forward to reading more. We flew into LAX in June, we also had a 2 hour wait in immigration with 6000 others ! It was bonkers. !

[Wordsworth]

The Schweppes tonic BA supply makes me sad too.

Excellent travel day report. Why did you have to be out the pool by 8pm? That seems odd!

[smithlane]

Oh wow Michelle I’ve been so looking forward to this! What a long but overall successful travel day, I bet you were pinching yourself when you finally arrived! I didn’t love LA but I really don’t think we did it justice when we went in 2019 so I’m looking forward to exploring more when I go for work
I can’t wait to read the rest!

[WIGGYSMUM]

What an epic travel day Michelle!
Gotta love teens and their idea of packing , mind even our youngest (22) is never in any rush 🤣

The lady in Trader Joes sounded so lovely, I don’t eat lollipops but I think I’d of still said yes

😘x

[flo-tinka]

“so we agreed that Mat would just catch the sick in his hands if it happened”
Your excitement at arriving in LA is great to read

[unixgirl]

That's a heck of a long day, LAX is a bad airport to clear immigration in. I spent over an hour in line when I was there years ago so it doesn't sound like it has improved. You sound like you have an epic trip planned.