Joshua Tree National Park, California

Joshua Trees

When we were planning our trip to California, I was determined to fit in a visit to a National Park when I was there. When I was reading reviews, Joshua Tree very rarely came up, or at least if it did it was pretty far down the list. However, all of the blockbuster parks were further from our base of LA than we wanted to drive we decided to take a chance on Joshua Tree. I'm really pleased we did as our day inside the park was easily my favourite day of the holiday.

Hidden Valley trail

We started our day in the park office close to our Air BnB apartment to pay our park fee and get some advice on what to do during the day and then we were off into the park!

Our first stop was the Barker Dam trail. As with all the walk during the day it was an easy 30 min - 1 hr loop from the car park which head out to a small, and now empty, dam that was built by cattle ranches in first half of the last century. On the way to the dam we saw some ancient rock paintings which, if I remember correctly, a TV crew had painted over to make them stand our more for their filming!

Inside the Hidden Valley

It was then a short drive to the Hidden Valley a one mile loop through large boulders in, surprisingly enough, a hidden valley. There were a number of rock climbers inside the valley who were looking for challenges to climb.

Hidden Valley rock formations

After we'd come out of the valley we sat at some of the nearby picnic benches to eat our lunch and soak in the amazing view below of hundreds of Joshua Trees as far as the eye could see.

Joshua Trees as far as the eye can see

After lunch we drove up to the Keys View lookout, which had hazy views down to the Mexican border which you can apparently see when the smog isn't too bad.

Skull Rock

We then drove onto Skull Rock which really does look like a skull, as you can see for yourself from the photo above.

We then drove across to the Cholla cactus garden. I was pretty nervous walking along the paths and in between the cacti as there were signs telling you that the needles were really difficult to remove if you managed to prick yourself. Not somewhere that you'd want to lose your footing....

Cholla Cactus Garden Trail

The cholla cactus garden also marked the point where the national park transitioned from the Mojave dessert where we had spent most of the day to the Sonoran dessert below us. There were huge and vastly different vistas.

Our trusty hire car

Our final stop of the day, as the shadows were lengthening, was the White Tank camping ground for a short walk round one of the trails and a visit to the rock arch below.

The arch at White Tank

And with that our Californian holiday came to and end. It has only taken me fifteen months to get the final blog of our holiday posted!

What on earth are you doing in Rancho Cucamonga on your honeymoon??

Becks with her giant pancakes

It would be fair to say that I wasn't particularly looking forward to the long drive from Solvang to Joshua Tree National Park, so the night before we'd been looking at the map of somewhere to break the journey along the way. We settled on Corky's Kitchen and Bakery in Rancho Cucamonga as a point to aim at, a bit over half way and beyond what should be the worst of the LA traffic.

Corky's didn't turn out to be the idyllic American diner you'd perhaps be dreaming of, instead it was modern building in a small parade of bland shops just off the freeway. But we'd arrived and I was looking forward to a break from the driving so we headed inside.

Reuben sandwich

Detecting our foreign accents, one of the friendly servers asked us what we what we were up to. When we said that we were on our honeymoon we the rather startled, and priceless response, "what on earth are you doing in Rancho Cucamonga on your honeymoon?".

Eating enormous pancakes is what Becks' was doing. The pancakes were so large that the accompanying scrambled eggs and bacon had to be served on a separate plate. They were fearsome looking beasts but Becks put in a valiant effort only leaving a amount for a takeaway box.

My reuben was thankfully a lot more modest.

Rolling back into the car we completed a trouble free drive to the Air BnB apartment we'd rented in Joshua Tree just outside the National Park.

Our Air BnB house in Joshua Tree

In the evening we took a load of washing to the laundrette and sat there while it was going round in the machine. There were some 'characters' who came to do their washing while we were including one women, who after studying us, decided to come over and tell us that she thought we were a well suited couple.

Fed up of eating out we made our maiden visit to Walmart to pickup some supplies for the next couple of days. The US hypermarket was a sadly underwhelming experience and not that different to big supermarkets in the UK or France (or at least the Joshua Tree branch wasn't).

Monarch butterfly colony and Cachuma Lake, California

Monarch butterlfy 

It may have been a year since we went to California, and I'm midway through writing up our more recent holiday to Japan, but I'm determined to still finish blogging our last holiday too.

When Becks realised there was a monarch butterfly colony not too far from where we were staying in Solvang it became a must visit for us. The butterflies are supposed to have a peak of activity mid morning when the sun penetrates through the trees and warms the butterflies up.

When we got to the butterfly glade in Goleta it was beautifully peaceful and we had it to ourselves. The butterflies weren't being particularly active, still huddled together on branches of the trees, but we did get to see a number of the butterflies flying.

Towards the end of our time in the glade a group of four middle aged Americans arrived, completely ignored the signs asking you to be quite so as not to disturb the butterflies and were making a total racket. Not too long after they arrived we left them to it and headed back to the car.

Lunch at Brophy Bros in Santa Barbara

We weren't too far from Santa Barbara so decided to head back there for lunch after a successful visit to the pier a couple of days before hand. Rather than a second visit to the pier we headed to the marina to check out Brophy Bros, I'm not quite sure of the full story, but it's a restaurant where my aunt and uncle know the owner from their regular trips to California twenty years ago.

We had a quick lunch sitting on the balcony over looking the sea. I'd love to tell you what it was like, but I honestly can't remember.

Cachuma Lake

On our way back to Solvang we stopped at Cachuma Lake just as the sun started to set. We pulled in at a large camping area, that was completely deserted in winter, but judging by all the facilities in place must be very popular in summer.

We had a pleasant stroll round the campsite looking at different views of the lake in the glorious golden light. We'd read about California's drought and how many days it had been since it had last rained, but seeing how low the lake was really brought home how bad the drought is.

Solvang, California

Solvang, CA

It's time to return to the write up of our holiday to California at the back end of last year. Only six months ago now!

I've been to the US quite a few times now, mainly with work and to the large cities of New York, Chicago and Charlotte. Our visit to Solvang was one of my first visits to small town America. Although admittedly Solvang isn't your typical small US town, originally settled in 1911 as a Danish colony, the place has hung onto it's Danish heritage and turned it into a tourist industry.

We were staying in The Landsby which, as expected, played up the Scandi minimalism. Despite a few quirks (no light switches next to the bed and stingy breakfasts) I enjoyed the laid back atmosphere and design.

Inside the Landsby

I kicked off our day first full day in Solvang with a run across the Santa Ynez river and along Alisal Creek, past a golf course (crazily green considering the drought) and past a ranch with its own rodeo stadium before turning round and heading back into town.

After breakfast we drifted through town and across to the Mission Santa Inés. Founded in 1804 the mission is now a basic museum and Parish Church with a small garden outside the church that you can look round.

Solvang Mission

After visiting the Mission we did another loop of town to see more of the Danish style buildings around town. All very cute, but none of them really tempted us inside to look round being filled with touristy knick-knacks.

 We thought we'd head over to the nearby, and equally chocolate box, town of Los Olivios in the afternoon. Being in wine country I quite fancied the idea of lunch in a vineyard somewhere nice. However, it wasn't clear that many of them had restaurants which were open midweek in winter so we ended up buying some sandwiches and eating them in Sunny Fields park instead. So glamorous!

Los Olivios

Los Olivios is even smaller than Solvang and is another town geared towards the tourists, although it felt like we are the only visitors in town. Los Olivios seemed to be a centre of the local wine business with quite a few offices / tasting rooms for the vineyards in town. We had a look around St Mark's-in-the-valley church before leaving town.

Having failed to visit a vineyard we enjoyed some local wines during happy hour in the hotel bar before heading over the road for dinner.

Fish of the day at the Succulent Cafe in Solvang. Seared tuna on 'risotto'

Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara Pier 

For the second morning in a row I started the day with a run up San Vicente Boulevard. Essentially in the middle of a dual carriageway, but this being California it was a lot more glamorous than trying to run on the A34 in the UK. It was much quieter on my second morning without the running clubs to keep me company.

Back in the hotel we checked out, leaving our bags in reception to come back and pick up later with the hire car.

We strolled across town to the hotel where housed the hire car location. On the way I realised that I was actually quite nervous at the prospect of driving in America. A strange car in a strange country. (Driving only three or four times a year I've realised I find driving a more and more alien experience these days.)

My nerves meant that I'd carefully plotted our route onto the Pacific Coast Highway that we'd take all the way up to Santa Barbara and we were quickly onto Route 1 and heading through Malibu and out of the city.

The coast road was definitely more scenic, if slower, than taking the in land motorway. Around Oxnard we passed huge fields growing strawberries. Must be back breaking work to pick those huge fields of fruit!

The lobster roll from the Santa Barbara Shellfish Company

We arrived in Santa Barbara in mid afternoon, parked the car and went to explore. With the sun slowly sinking in the sky we walked out onto the pier taking a look in a couple of the tourist shops and watched people fishing at the end of the pier for a while.

I was in need of some lunch so we decided to stop at the Santa Barbara Shellfish Company who have a small shack towards the end of the pier. We wrote our names on the list outside the door and luckily didn't have to wait too long before we were shown to a table outside, result!

I ordered the lobster roll. It was on my wish list to have a lobster roll while we were in America and sitting by the sea seemed like a good moment. The lobster roll was excellent. It had lots of lobster, wasn't overwhelmed with mayonnaise and nicely seasoned with chopped cornichons. I definitely could have eaten a second.

Fried calamari and scallops

Becks ordered the fried calamari and scallops which was also pretty good. The scallops were quite a bit smaller than the ones we get in the UK, but they were a lot cheaper and seemed to be more plentiful.

After lunch we went for a walk along the beach and sat on the sand for a while to take in the views. We'd noticed on the drive up that there seemed to be a lot of small oil rigs quite close to shore along the coast and we could see a few more for the beach.

With the sun setting and our parking we'd paid for about to expire we headed back to the car and drove inland to our next overnight stay in Solvang.

Sunset in Santa Barbara

Santa Monica - it started at Swingers

Outside Swingers diner 

I started the morning by heading out for the run. I thought it would be nice to run along the beach but it turns out that the Palisade Park runs out after a couple of kilometers. I spotted quite a few runners from a local club who were all heading north east along San Vincente Boulevard so I decided to tag along with them. The run was along a ten meter wide strip of grass that served as the divider between the lanes of traffic. To say you were running along a strip of grass in the middle of the road doesn't sound very exciting, but it was actually a pretty nice run as there was virtually no traffic and the houses on either side of the road were pretty attractive. The only downsides were the lack of water fountains and bathroom facilities.

After a shower back in the hotel, we thought we'd start our final full day in Santa Monica with a visit to the farmers market and hope to pick up some breakfast while we were there. Californian farmers markets have a reputation for being amazing but I was struggling to see what all the fuss was about. Perhaps I was in the wrong frame of mind as I was looking for stalls to sell be breakfast rather than fresh produce to take home and cook with, but it all seemed very expensive and a bit niche.

Turning in land we started drifting a few backstreets looking for somewhere to have breakfast and we ended up close to Pono burger, where we'd eaten on the first day, and couldn't resist the colourful Swingers diner.

Inside the diner

The diner had quite a retro feel inside and we ordered the classic mix of pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon. In a desperate attempt to increase our intake of fresh fruit and vegetables we ordered a fruit cup on the side. It felt like a good idea at the time, but simply added to the enormous volume of food we consumed!

After breakfast we headed back towards the beach and our first stop was the camera obscura. The camera clearly isn't a major tourist attraction and we eventually work out that you have to go into the attached Art Hub and ask at reception to borrow the key and then you get let yourself into the camera which is located at the top of the building. We only stayed inside the camera for a few minutes, but it was fun to look at the view from the 1950s camera.

On leaving the camera we headed south along the beach. Just beyond the pier was a sign for "The original muscle beach" and we sat on the wall for a while mesmerised by people 'slack lining'. The attached bungee cords between two metal posts and proceeded to perform all manner of tricks on them.

Slack lining

Watching the beginners who couldn't even balance on the bungee cord gave me an even greater appreciated for those people that could pull of tricks as they flew up into the air and back down again.

Breaking free from the hypnotic slack lining (and because I was a bit worried the back of my neck might burn if we sat there too long) we continued our walk south along the beach. It was an area with more hotels, than where we were staying north of the beach, and there were a lot more tourists like us milling about and enjoying the sunshine.

After a while we turned away from the beach and headed back into Santa Monica along Main St. Not quite the main artery that the name would suggest, but instead we passed allotments and small independent shops and cafés.

Santa Monica City Hall

Close to the pier we walked past the Art Deco City Hall and had a walk through Tongva Park. The park felt like it had been newly renovated and had a lovely series of little walks, attractive planting and even a lookout over the sea. It has been pretty well done for such a small space. We saw a wedding party having some photos taken in the park and I can see why you'd choose it as a location.

Back in the city we visited the mall for a look round a few of the shops / department stores. Our wallets were grateful that we bought very little.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped for a couple of sun downers on the roof of the Shangri La hotel which we'd head had great views of the sunset over the ocean. The bar was quite busy, but after a bit of loitering we managed to grab ourselves two seats on one of the sofas where we could enjoy our drinks and the view. As well as listen in to two couples nearby telling each other how they'd met.

For dinner we visited we visited Father's Office which is a burger joint (the third in three days, I'm liking the average) close to the restaurant we'd visited on the first night. The chef is apparently a celebrity having appeared on TV, although I'm suspecting it was an obscure cable show. The bar operates no reservations policy and you have to order and hope that a seat becomes available before your food arrived. It was feeling like more effort than it should be and I was tempted to go somewhere else, but we ordered a couple of beers and were able to get a couple seats. The bar was incredibly dark so I didn't even attempt to take any photos. I think I remember it being a pretty decent burger? (As reviews go, I'm sure you'll all agree they don't get much better than that.)

Getty Museum - impossible to visit by foot

Fox theatre - Westwood 

Having a day longer in LA than expected, we decided to add a visit the Getty Museum into our trip.

We had a lazy start to the morning and then caught the bus up to suburb of Westwood, where we'd planned to change onto a second bus for the Getty Museum. I was in need of some breakfast so before getting onto the next bus we decided to go in search of some food.

With the nearby University of California campus and some interesting art deco buildings (like the Fox theatre above) the suburb had something about it, although the café we chose for breakfast wasn't super exciting.

Becks outside the Getty Museum

Fortified with breakfast, rather than getting a second bus to the museum, we decided to strike out on foot. Our walk to the museum turned into a bit of a farce.

We saw a large green space on the map and thought we might be able to do about half the walk through a park. It turned out that the green space on the map was a military cemetery that was most definitely closed to the public, so we had to walk along the outside the cemetery instead.

We then cut through some pleasant back streets and onto Sunset Boulevard. Wouldn't it be amazing to walk along one of LAs most famous streets? It turns out that it's a very long road and we were at the rather drab tail end.....

At the end of Sunset Boulevard we had to cross a rather major intersection not really designed for pedestrians. Successfully negotiated, we reached what the map showed as the closest entrance to the museum, only to find that it was a goods and staff entrance only. We still had another mile to go before the visitor entrance!

Autumn leaves

Our joy slightly dented we set out again. The took a couple of residential streets parallel to the highway until they ran out around 600m from the museum entrance. I was tempted to see if we could walk up the grass verge of the dual carriage way, but there was no real verge to speak of. It seemed completely ludicrous, but defeated, we called a taxi to take us the final few hundred meters.

The taxi took ages to arrive as the driver got lost on the way. His satnav also wanted to take him to the goods / staff entrance that we'd been to earlier and he didn't seem to like my suggestion that he was going the wrong way.

Finally we made it to the museum. A simple walk had turned into a bit of an ordeal in a very pedestrian unfriendly city.

Sunset views from the Getty Museum

Despite the adventure in getting there, the Getty Museum was definitely worth the visit. With the sun setting we spent most of our time outside admiring the great architecture, gardens, views of the city and the golden sun setting over the ocean.

Once the sun had set we headed inside the galleries for a speedy look round before the museum shut. The museum is separated into different pavilions and we spent time enjoying a Japanese photography exhibition before speed walking round as much of the rest of the museum as we could before it closed.

Leaving the museum we took the bus back to Westwood with a few other staff and visitors. We new better than to try walking this time....

From Christchurch to Santa Monica - when you remember how the international date line works

Santa Monica beach 

After a lovely farewell with Becks' parents at the airport we jumped on an internal flight from Christchurch to Auckland. While we were waiting for our international flight to LA we realised we'd forgotten about the international date line when booking our hotel and we didn't have a room for the first night of our stay. Whoops.

I called the hotel, but there was no answer from reception (it was the middle of the night). I checked online and could see that they did have rooms available, but there online booking system wouldn't actually let us reserve a room. As a last resort I sent the hotel asking if we could book for another night and we both got onto plane relatively content we'd have somewhere to sleep once we go to LA.

It was another relatively painless flight on Air NZ (I rate them up their with Emirates as the best airline to fly economy) we arrived bleary eyed in LA at an ungodly hour of the morning, caught a free shuttle across to the public bus terminal and then a $1 bus across to Santa Monica. If you are going to be arriving in the world of Hollywood celebrities you might as well do it in style, right?

The cheeseburger at Pono Burger in Santa Monica

Luckily the hotel could extend our stay for an extra night. After dropping off our bags and having a quick freshen up we headed out to explore Santa Monica. The beach was just like the one I saw on Baywatch as a kid with golden sand and lifeguard huts. In fact it might have been the beach I saw as a kid as the show (I think) was filmed just north of Santa Monica.

After a stroll along the beach we had a drift round the pier. Full of cheap looking tourist attractions it was just waking up for the day.

After the pier we drifted back in land. Before going to America I'd been asking Becks how many burgers she thought she'd be able to eat in a day as I was keen to sample a few of the local offerings while we were there. As it was approaching lunchtime we drifted towards Pono Burger which has come up in my research before we'd left.

I thought it was both very Californian and very American. Californian in the sense they were placing and emphasis on local, organic and farmers market ingredients. American in the sense that the restaurant had and 'experience' and 'Chef Makhani' (who?) wanted to recommend you had your burger was cooked a certain way.

My cheeseburger was decent, if a little sloppy. The sweet potato fries were limp rather than crisp.

After lunch we headed back to the main shopping street in Santa Monica, drifting in and out of a few shops and identifying places to go back to rather than actually buying anything. Post window shopping we returned to the hotel hoping we'd be able to access our room and take a shower after the long flight.

It was tempting to crash early from the jet lag, but after a while resting in our room we decided to force ourselves out for dinner. Dinner was at a cheap and functional diner on Montana Avenue. We had frozen yoghurt on the way home and spied a ice cream shop that we made a silent pact we'd be returning to.