After leaving Las Vegas was the final day of driving, the final stretch through the deserts of Nevada on my way to California. The Drive itself was very straight forward and I don't mean this in any methaphorical way - I mean the road was again very straight. It was a very sentimental feeling seeing the views changing and just as I was leaving Nevada to California I drove by a hitchhiker. In my earlier years I used to do quite a bit of hitchhiking and I kinda felt bad from the previous one that I encountered crossing to Colorado from New Mexico. So as the opportunity raised I did give my new hitchhiker friend a lift.
He was on his way to northern California so I couldn't give him a long ride since I was headed towards south, but a good 150 miles to the right direction always helps a lot regardless. He told me that he had been hitchhiking and traveling in that manner for the previous two years around US. And now he wanted to get to Central America and see if there'd be a place to hang out for few months. Listening to his stories I did realize that my self claimed life style of a traveller was practically nothing compared to his dedication. Well.. one cannot really compare one's experience to another one's. So I'd say we both live with travel in our hearts - we were just on different paths of the road.
I had been collecting all the coins from the travel for road tolls and as it was my last driving day I figured that he had much more things to do with those "savings" than I did. So as we departed I gave him all the change I had.
After I dropped him off the rest of the drive was nice and easy. My goal was to reach Santa Monica by the nightfall so that I could find the "end of trail" sign by sunlight. One thing I noticed arriving to LA that the traffic was as "bad" as people had told me. Maybe it was the timing of me arriving but that was the initial feeling from driving there.
I arrived in LA in good time but because of the traffic I didn't arrive to Santa Monica until sunset. After looking for awhile and googling for guidance I found the Santa Monica Pier and indeed the "End of the Trail" sign as well! And now the travel was done! I must say that the last time I had such a feeling of accomplishment was upon our arrival to Sydney just 2,5 years ago - though that time I arrived with a broken finger and had to spend my first night in Sydney in Hospital waiting for a surgery (but that's a whole different story).
I stayed by the pier till the sun set down and after started looking for a place to stay. After looking for a moment I stumbled across to a very decent priced hostel and it was right in the center of Hollywood Boulevard! It took me again awhile to get there and to find it - and I must say I was quite lucky to get a nice room from the boulevard at that time. Regardless I got the car parked and majority of my stuff in in no time. After I took a little stroll on the boulevard and celebrated my final stretch with a pint of Guinness in a local Karaoke Bar.
Los Angeles
Initially I had thought that I'd go and see possibly San Diego and San Francisco as well. I would've also had great contacts in both - but as I woke up for the first morning in LA I realized that I would not be going anywhere from there. Even though I really wanted to see more, my body was quite clear when saying that no more for this one :)
In the morning I woke up early to clean and clear up the car from everything that was left from the previous night. surprisingly lot of stuff I had bought - made me wonder how I was supposed to fly with all that stuff? anyways.. I had to return the car by 11 am and it was at least 30 minute drive away to get to the airport and with LA traffic it would end up being 1,5 hours.. so I gave myself 2 hours time to get there.. I ended up being half right. With the traffic it took me a bit over an hour to get there. I found the major complex of Hertz, parked the car and left the keys in. As the official from Hertz was checking that everything was ok he finally asked if I'd like to know how much I drove in that 32 days I had the car? I had a general idea of course but the final count was 5942 miles (about 9500km) which is about half more that I've drove in my whole life prior to this travel.
I took the Bus back "home" and just chilled the rest of the night, ate outside, checked the stars on the boulevard and headed back for a nice and earned easy nights sleep.
LA - The rest of it
As I had decided to stay in LA for the whole 6 days I had time I needed to find stuff to do. To be honest though I was quite happy not to do anything! But as I was there I felt that there's few things I have to do: Explore the Hollywood Boulevard more, visit Beverly Hills, climb up to see the Hollywood sign and visit the Universal studios. Each of these goals I managed to fulfill though there was few bonuses as well. As it happened I had a friend from the ships in LA as well and she knew the Theatre and Stand Up circles a bit. So I ended up spending one of the evenings with her checking some of the open stand up/improvisation clubs in the area (which was absolutely great). Also she joined in for the hike to the Hollywood sign - which ended up being a proper off road hike.. as you do.
Another bonus was that I managed to get tickets to Conan O'Brian show filming. While there I ended up being quite lucky as well and got a seat right in the front! And Conan.. yea, he's tall.. and wears a LOT of make up for the filming.. :)
Final thing worth to mention is that it was also the time of Halloween when I was in LA - I didn't get a costume for myself but I found a Pub Crawl. And they really like their Halloween in there.. the amount of detail some people put into these costumes was crazy! Surely another piece of the culture I was happy to see.
All and all the time in LA was fun, but I was quite ready to be done with the journey. I'm sure there could've been more things to see and do but I do feel that the choice to stay in LA and not travel further was the correct one.. even now 4 months later.. ;)
