I'm coming to America

We caught our Air New Zealand flight that evening at 7PM on the 18th to Los Angeles, really excited, but also a bit jaded from our NZ trip. All this driving has really made us reevaluate the next two months of our trip. We had planned to do Peru, Mexico & the US, but now seem more to likely to do a bit of Mexico & USA. So farewell to the land of the long white cloud, possum pies and Maouri Clare.

We touched down safely at 10:30AM on the 18th. Now if you hadn't noticed, this was more than 8 hours before we took off. The funny thing about crossing the date line is ....... absolutely nothing and everything that happened that day was increasingly unfunny. If my calculations are correct, we had a 40+ hour day which could easily match my biggest bender ever and I felt worse this time around, guaranteed.

We decided to drive down the Pacific Coast Highway towards Orange County which was a beautiful drive even in our state. We had brought our cheapie $39 tent which we had bought in Queensland and had eyed a campsite in Newport where we planned to spend the night. Turns out this place is like the campsite of the stars with photos all over and a tent site price close to $70... Not today thanks.

Instead we headed for our second choice in this canyon not far form Laguna Beach. By this time it was already dark and the campsite happened to be one of those eco-friendly ones where you have to hike to get to it, on this occasion it would be 3 miles. Negative ghost rider.

Instead we went to the diner for some burgers & beers and decided to sleep in the parking lot of the campsite in our car. The drivers side seat decided not to recline so Celia out of the goodness of her heart took the cramped backseat and let me take the passenger side.

We had been sleeping for about an hour when I awoke to this alarmingly bright light shining in the rear and side of the car. Some ranger had passed through and disliked our idea of camping out there but I gave her my sob story and she said we could stay until 5:30AM by which time the next ranger would be on duty and might not be as kind.

Welcome to America