Well, here we are. We made it from the right coast to the left coast. We traveled approximately 4600 miles, leaving from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and traveling through Wrightsville Beach, NC, Atlanta, GA, New Orleans, LA, Houston, TX, San Antonio, TX, El Paso, TX, Phoenix, AZ, Sedona, AZ, the Grand Canyon, AZ, Las Vegas, NV, and Los Angeles, CA. We also briefly passed through Mississippi, Alabama and New Mexico, and were very close to the Mexican border. Before I left on the trip, I mentioned what I was doing to a female friend of mine, who really couldn’t understand why we were doing it. There is something that is alluring about the summer road trip … I think it goes back to the nature of our species, in that exploring is just a natural desire. After all, without Christopher Columbus’s “epic” roadie in the summer of 1492, who knows how the world would have turned out. (In true roadie fashion, he made a right instead of a left and ended up here instead of India. Lesson learned: always obey the GPS).

So now that we have the philosophical and psychological reasons for our trip out of the way, let’s take a look at our three days in Los Angeles, California.

Our hotel was in a magical neighbourhood called “Little Armenia”, close enough to the glitz and glamour of the Hollywood Hills, but far enough away to get that authentic Armenian feeling at discount prices. We took a little trip to the University of Southern California, which has a pretty nice campus, but the main event of the first day was a Dodgers’ baseball game at Chavez Ravine. For those of you who are planning to go to a game there, any warnings you hear about crazy parking is mostly overblown. (this was in July, 2008). Everyone pays 15 bucks to get into the lots, and we weren’t that early but had no trouble getting into a spot. We had read that it takes “a degree in physics” to get out of the place, but again, there were no problems. Having a GPS definitely helps! In the end the Atlanta Braves roughed up on the Dodgers, and Austin (as a Braves fan) was not pleased that I was mostly neutral but was cheering on Russell Martin (the Dodgers’ catcher) because he is a good Canadian kid. I honestly don’t really care about one team or another, but I will support the Canadians. Americans evidently don’t understand this whole “sticking together” thing because down there it’s every man, woman and child for themselves! Or at least that’s how I see it.

The next morning we took a trip down to Malibu and checked out Pepperdine University, and trust me if you are in LA you gotta go check it out. It sits up on a hill that looks out over the Pacific Ocean, and even though the “ocean layer” lay heavy in the air, the views were pretty spectacular. After Pepperdine we went to UCLA, which is again a nice school – it had the most impressive bookstore that I had ever been in, they pretty much have UCLA and bears tagged on just about everything you can think of.

Our next trip was down the walk of fame, which was a 2.5 hour journey to look at about a million sidewalk stars for people that I’d never heard of. Austin, as a movie-buff, kept saying, ooh “so-and-so” and ooh “that guy”, and in all fairness it is a neat thing to go and see once. Our evening ended with an interesting tour themed after “The Hills” on MTV. Now I know that by talking about the Hills I am breaking rule #1 about guys and the Hills which is: you don’t talk about the Hills.

Okay so Austin and I had seen a few episodes, and most of the girls I know obsess over this show, so we were curious. We drove by “Teen Vogue”, some night club called “Area” and the girls’ old house at the Villas (The actual place, not the one they fake you into believing on tv – you’ll have to do research on this to find out what I mean). After concluding the trip with stops on Rodeo Drive, and Mulholland Drive, I was beginning to feel like a true Los Angelite. Wait, is that my skin I feel turning to plastic?!?

And now, friends, we come to the last day of our trip. We had to finish at the beach – if you are in the area you need to go to Laguna Beach, not just because of the fact that it was the inspiration of another odd MTV show that hooks girls in the way the crack hooks strippers; it is just a really cool place with artist shops everywhere. One warning: the toll to get off the highway coming from LA is scandalously priced.

So that’s basically what happened on our trip across America. I have returned to Canada, and will be leaving for Seoul, South Korea in a little over a month. I suspect this blog will take off at that point, so I hope you will keep reading.

Wrightsville NC -> Laguna Beach CA 4300 miles