Tag Archives: USA2017-TGA3

Brian’s Travel Spot: The Grand Adventure, Part III

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The picnic area at Sycamore Cove Beach on the Pacific Coast Highway just west of Los Angeles.Welcome to another Travel Spot, part of my series detailing my trip to America from January/February 2017. These particular posts are all about The Grand Adventure, the week-long drive which I took from Phoenix to San Francisco. So far, I’ve described my drive from Phoenix to Joshua Tree National Park, followed by a day hiking in the park and an evening drive in the rain to Los Angeles. After spending a day in the city, I was on my way again, driving along the Californian coast on my way to San Francisco.

This post, Part III of The Grand Adventure, covers the first part of the drive, from Los Angeles to San Simeon, following SR 1 (the Pacific Coast Highway) and US 101. The route I took followed the coast as much as possible, with some spectacular views along the way. In all, I covered 260 miles which, including stops, took me just over six hours.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: The Grand Adventure, A Day in LA

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The famous Hollywood sign on the hills behind Los Angeles, from my first visit to the city in 2017.Welcome to the next instalment of The Grand Adventure, part of a series of Travel Spot posts that form part of a larger trip to America that I took in January/February 2017. The Grand Adventure itself is the week-long drive I made from Phoenix to San Francisco via the Joshua Tree National Park and Los Angeles, a total of 1,2000 miles.

Part I covered my drive from Phoenix to Joshua Tree, while Part II details the day I spent in the park, followed by an evening drive to Los Angeles. Today’s instalment is all about the day I spent in Los Angeles before I drove up the Californian coast all the way to San Francisco.

The fact that I spent any time at all in Los Angeles was all down to a chance encounter with Lee Gaze, owner of Silhouette, shortly before the trip. I’d originally planned to skip Los Angeles, and just go straight onto my drive along the coast. However, Lee was horrified when I told him, insisting that I had to have at least one day in the city. He was so persuasive that I relented, replanning my trip so that I would spend Monday in Los Angeles before carrying on with my drive.

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