#mountpalomar

Coast to Coast – Days 18 to 24

Costa Mesa, CA

Whilst our Coast to Coast trip is ostensibly a holiday, the constant driving and nomadic nature of the trek are hard work. On the other hand a week in Costa Mesa, being spoiled by Jacqui and John in their lovely home is indeed a holiday. And the longer our Southern Californian sojourn has gone on the more I have wanted our adventure to end here. As it is we are are only half way the return trip to DC still to be undertaken - albeit accompanied by an additional driver in the form of my mate Eric, who is flying out from the East Coast to join us.

So what did we do during our ‘holiday’ week. Well, being close to Anaheim we quite naturally spent a day at Disneyland, which was suitably heartening. 

Photos; Disneyland, Anaheim, CA

We also relaxed on Newport Beach and I swam in the Pacific. 

Photos; Relaxing on Newport Beach

We toured the Orange County coastline visiting Corunna Del Mar and ate out at Toni Roma’s Spare Rib House. 

On day four we drove down to San Diego to visit its world famous Zoo followed by a tour of the city centre. 

Photo; San Diego Zoo

We visited grand shopping malls, made numerous trips to the beach and in the evenings sampled lovely barbecued food. 

Photo; Newport Beach, CA

Photo, Jacqui, Dave & John 

Photo; Crystal Cove, CA

Slowly we came to appreciate why California is the golden state and why Jacqui and John have emigrated from Britain to live here.

On day six Eric arrived flying in from Washington DC via Minneapolis. In his 25 years of life he has never been further west than St Louis MI. His first remark on being picked up from LAX Airport was how lacking in humidity the air was compared to that in DC.  

I drove him back to Jacqui and John’s where he was made to feel entirely at home. Being a keen astronomer he was eager to visit Mount Palomar and its famous telescope. 

Photo; Mount Palomar Observatory

So within the hour of his arrival we were off again to Mount Palomar arriving with barely fifteen minutes of opening time left. They kindly let us in and Eric saw the scope. But he was less than impressed. With shadows starting to lengthen we headed home stopping off at Nada Point to take photos. 

“I’ve never seen the sun set over the ocean” said Eric.

Photo; Sunset over the Pacific at Nada Point

Come evening J & J cooked a Roast Lamb dinner to which they also invited fellow travellers Lloyd and Harold. They were good company and seemed keen to gain our impressions of the trip so far.  As we will be heading off tomorrow, bed time was not long delayed. The final night in a comfortable bed for some time to come.

Trip Details;

Weeks Mileage; 365

Total Mileage; 4157

To be continued ......