Back at Judy’s house in Orinda, we relaxed a bit and ordered the probably best Pizza in San Francisco, Zachary’s Chicago Style. As we already saw most of the highlights of the city and because the tickets for Alcatraz were unfortunately sold out (due to the peak season they were booked out a few weeks in advance), we decided to visit Point Reyes the next day. This is directly at the San Andreas Fault Line, which separates the pacific and the northern American continental plate (A few thousand years from now, huge parts of California will become an island due to the movement of the plates). It’s quite interesting to just “jump” from one plate to another 🙂 Besides the fault line, there is also a light house at Point Reyes, which we visited. Due to the San Andreas Fault line Point Reyes is situated on kind of an half island with beautiful long beaches inviting to have a swim in. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and so probably whole San Francisco was gathered there which is not surprising due to its proximity to San Francisco. That’s why we were in a traffic jam for most parts of the day :-/
We spent the evening together with Judy having delicious dinner (as always) and a skype call to New Zealand with Karl and Claire, but the next day we had to say good bye to Judy and San Francisco with a heavy heart. On the way back to L.A., where we had to return our car, we made a stopover in the Sequoia National Park in order to have a look at the largest trees in the world. This time large means the trunk with the largest volume and belongs to the General Sherman Tree. In contrast, the Kauri trees in New Zealand seem to be tiny. After a strong rain – yes you read correctly, rain in California – we made our way to a campground. All in all a good stopover, if you want to split the inland drive between San Francisco and L.A.
After a fairly comfortable night in the car, we went on the next day to L.A. and Carlos, who agreed to
host us again. We directly dropped off the car, had breakfast and made our way to the top of the City Hall of Los Angeles enjoying the view over the city (on our first visit the roof was closed due to a private event). Carlos invited Alex, one of his former AirBnB guests, who is currently trying to relocate from Germany to L.A. in order to begin a career in the movie music industry. Afterwards, we drove to the beach in Santa Monica, which we missed the first time as well, and went the first time for a swim in the American Pacific Ocean. Maybe it was the wine, but we were really surprised about the warm temperature of the sea. 🙂 Of course, we couldn’t miss the Santa Monica Pier – and with it the official end of the Route 66 – and having a delicious dinner. But we didn’t just go somewhere, but to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant. Who might think now that this sounds familiar to you is completely right. This restaurant is the movie location for Forrest Gump! Quite funny how you randomly encounter movie locations.
We started the next two days a bit more relaxed and visited the Getty Villa (a copy of a villa in Pompei with a highly expensive art collection) together with another friend of Carlos and made on the last day a hike behind the Hollywood sign, this time again together with Alex. Of course we couldn’t miss another American experience, having breakfast in a real American Diner (Denny’s). We spent the two evenings with relaxed and delicious dinners, beer and wine at Carlos’s place, who invited Alex and other friends as well as his current AirBnB guest Gary from Buffalo. He instantly gave us his business card in order to catch up with him once we get closer to the Niagara Falls! Just typical American 🙂
Friday morning we said good bye to Carlos and took the bus to San Diego close to the Mexican border to our Grand Canyon acquaintance, but that is another story.