After a nice buffet breakfast at the Hampton Inn, we took a
few photos and packed the car up. Just as we were leaving one of the back
office staff came up to us and said that she had seen us taking photos outside
and would we like her to take one of the two of us by the reception desk! We
said yes please, and here it is.
So, it was back into the car and ready for a very long drive
to Los Angeles. We had just over 300 miles to cover, which according to Google
Maps would take us five and three quarter hours without stops! We had no
sightseeing stops arranged for this leg of the journey – it was just one long
stretch of driving!
We did stop for lunch at a rest stop:
Where there was also this sign
And of course Hugh had to go off and see if he could spot
any sleeping! Fortunately he didn’t!
I took my turn of driving and we also had another rest stop
for Hugh to have a snooze before we hit the outskirts of LA. Boy, I don’t like
driving on the Freeways! I thought the M25 over here was horrid, but it’s
nothing to the Freeways around LA! However, after a stressful hour and a half
we arrived at our hotel – the Century City Intercontinental.
The parking here was valet only (although there were in and
out privileges, so it wasn’t too bad) at a cost of $26 per night, but we
couldn’t do much about that! We left the car and checked in and were shown to
our room.
The view from the balcony was quite nice of LA and we could
actually sit on it as it a) wasn’t too hot and b) there were no mosquitos!
We had problems with the internet here – you had to pay for
it and the wifi didn’t work and the cable supplied was broken. We rang down to
housekeeping and it took them over an hour to supply us with a new cable –
altogether the service at this hotel was nowhere near as good as any of the
other hotels we had stayed at.
We went to look at the menu for our evening meal. The food
was not our ‘sort of thing’ at all – very fancy and dressed up if you know what
I mean. The waitress also told us that they were all small plate meals and we
would need 3 or 4 each to make up a main meal – there was only 1 thing each
that we liked on the menu! So, we asked for our car and decided to go out and
find a restaurant. We both actually fancied a Sizzler (one of our favourites
when we had been to Florida) and so looked up the address on the internet,
banged it into the satnav and off we went. Only to arrive and find it had been
closed down! We then drove around, getting more and more desperate, trying to
find somewhere to eat. We were both tired and scratchy with each other – the
traffic was horrid and when we saw a restaurant we couldn’t find anywhere to
park. In the end we went back to the hotel and into the bar and ordered a
burger each! It wasn’t great and it was very expensive, but at least it filled
a hole!
This hadn’t been the best day of our holiday! In fact, it
was probably the least interesting and the most tiring day of the fortnight. We
decided to put it behind us, go to bed and make our last two days as enjoyable
as the previous 12 had been.
3 comments:
I remember arriving in LA some years ago, and having the same kind of experience...we drove around looking for somewhere to eat, and eventually found somewhere in which we had a nice meal, but it was VERY expensive!
LA isn't a favourite place of mine, though I love Santa Monica!
Alison xx
Sad to read it didn't live up to expectations, but at least it made you really appreciate how great the rest had been! How kind of the member of staff to take your photo - lovely shot.
Just the thought of the LA freeways makes me shudder. Sorry about it being a disapointing day.
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