After our bad experience Sunday, today so far is going smoothly fingers crossed

We managed the route to the airport in the scary traffic. It took 90 minutes to travel 32 miles. The cars zoom in front from the left and right and the trucks do not give way ever.

Now at the airport we still don’t know if we depart at 3 .30pm or 5.55pm! The cancelled flight is showing up now but our papers say 3.30pm. I know it will all work out 😵🥰. We are chilling out with coffee before check in opens. Our cases weigh light for a change we hope.

Confirmed 3.30pm xx

So now looking forward to home with Spring sunshine and sunny skies???????

we had the best time ever.

It’s finally come …..our last full day of travels. And we had a wonderful last full day.

We did not need to go far only 3 miles to Huntington Library and grounds. It is a museum, library containing valuable books and manuscripts, a European art gallery and an American art gallery, an extraordinary and best ever arboretum, the Huntington Library is known worldwide.

Where do I start? We only had today to see as much as we could. The place opened at 10am and closed at 5pm…. we were there the whole time!

It took all day just exploring the 120 acres, divided into 12 principle gardens.

As you can see from my photos we loved the desert garden, Chinese and the Japanese garden, but all of it had interesting and wonderful plants.

 

It was a cooler day with threatening clouds welling up late afternoon, but just the right temperature for walking all around.

 

In the Summer it must be too hot there. We also saw pretty desert birds and tiny humming birds, lizards and squirrels.

There were many people there and everyone chatted to us as we passed by.

 

Near our hotel we ordered a cheese pizza to share. Well we should have realised being in USA an 18 inch pizza arrived!

We struggled to eat a quarter each, then left the rest in the cafe, it seems they divided it out to give away lol!

So tomorrow we fly out of LAX at 3.30pm, arriving at Heathrow 9.30 am. At least we hope so as they cancelled our flight and we are hopefully on one 2 hours earlier!

I will write a little goodbye to our Mann’s Tours tomorrow from the airport. Xxx

Descanso Gardens is a 150 acres botanical garden located in La Cañada Flintridge, Los Angeles County, California.

To reach the botanical gardens we travelled up the hillside above the city. We past some huge houses on the way. I should think they cost millions of dollars.

At the gardens we only paid $6 each at entrance and went first for a coffee at the shop bar courtyard. It I cooler today about 23*c with a cool breeze and fluffy clouds welling up over the mountains. Very pleasant for strolling around and through the huge gardens. Here it is very much Spring flowers and blossoms. A complete contrast to Auckland botanical gardens where we saw autumn flowers and trees!

The tulips were amazing as were the daffodils. We saw iris’s, rhododendrons, cherry blossom and apple blossom, orange trees

…..the list goes on. There was a Californian area, a Japanese garden, mature trees. Everything was organised into areas with pathways and streams and ponds to pass along. The whole park is enclosed by a gigantic wired fence to keep out the deer and any bears that occasionally visit this area. Needless to say we had a lovely relaxing day and I hope you like the photos I have uploaded.

We finished our day with a visit to the Cheesecake Factory mmmmmm!

An easter Bunny for my 4 little grandchildren love from grandma xxx

 

We woke up later today but not too bad. Our body clocks are out of sync.

We left after rush hour so that was better for coping with the mad traffic in LA. We went up towards Lancaster to Antelope Valley to see more of the Mojave Desert and the wild flowers. Many people had the same idea. In the news it said that the super bloom orange colours can be seen from space! We stopped short of the end of the valley as the cars were at a stand still but we still saw fabulous colours of wild flowers. Millions of poppies and yellow flowers were as far as the eye could see over the hills both sides of the road.

We knew there was a park 20 miles away with Joshua trees and buttes. So as we couldn’t get to the end of the valley because of the traffic jam, we travelled onto saddleback butte state park.

Saddleback Butte State Park was well worth seeing. It was so full of lots of different wild flowers, Joshua trees, creosote bushes and surrounded by snow clad mountains. The buttes are outcrops of granite and make interesting forms, there was a circular tour path around the area with a self guided tour. The views were lovely.

I hope my photos show the scale of what was there for the eye to see.

The creosote bushes are one of the oldest growing plants in the world. The original bush puts out young growth around it and these rings of bush clones from the same plant can live 20000 yes twenty thousand years! You could see the rings of connected bushes all over this area ..so interesting. The park is an ancient dried up lake. The Joshua trees cannot be age gauged as they are not true trees so not wood and do not grow with rings. They are sinews and used by the Indians for rope.

Last visit to LA we explored the city sights and the Queen Mary….3 months later we are exploring the desert and valleys and state parks and not the usual sights….. something completely different.

See you all soon lots of love xxxxxxx

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California state has officially come out of its drought status after 6 years. Now because of all the rain and snow they had in Autumn/winter this year there is a “super bloom” of wild flowers in the deserts of California.

Today we travelled 60 miles south west from LA on I15, took Lake Street exit,  to see the super bloom near lake Elsinore.

We found out that buses take you up to Walker Canyon.

With a bit of luck we worked out where to park our car at the shopping outlet centre.        ( From the freeway we had seen the people climbing up the canyon ) It is run by volunteers and you pay $10 each that goes to charity via parks America. Police were there, and many coaches; to transport the many people up to the canyon. we were warned to look out for rattle snakes as it was so hot and they were about in the hills!

We walked right up the dirt track into the hillsides for a long way and these are some of my many pics

Back in the town on the lake we went to ” the stadium pizza main” a sports bar that was a micro brewery and had pizzas salads and other really nice food. We ate at long wooden tables with long benches surrounded by huge screens showing ice hockey, baseball and basket ball games. We were the oldest people there!!!! We had a great salad and enjoyed ourselves. All the other cafes were Mexican cuisine in this area.

Back on the interstate highway 15, we crawled along in slow traffic. We saw one woman had parked up on the hard shoulder taking photos! The reason for the jam was that people were driving so slowly to view the flowers on the hillsides and once we passed that area the traffic was flowing freely again!

It reached 30*c today and its only March.

Yesterday I told you we had went to a cheese cake factory in Old Pasadena, Grandad had the banana cheesecake and I had the original with sour cream on top. My clothes still fit me but are getting tight! Back home im going on my diet urgently 🙂

We arrived in LAX 6 hours before we set off from Auckland airport. We got our lost day back again.

Our experience at Lax was not good and neither of us had slept at all on the plane.

The first official we met after departing the plane shouted over and over again

” keep on moving, don’t stop this is an international airport… keep on moving,no stopping….we are an international airport”

We were moving no one was stopping!!

Up escalators and several moving walkways later we eventually came into arrivals. It was horrendous. We were made to walk up and down many times along a huge hall all taped off. Finally you self register and the machine asks many questions and then won’t photo your 4 fingers. 2 …3 yes but 4 at once no! You should have seen the expressions on our security photos!

Got past that only to find many more taped off lines to maze your way through. You then find a security lady who checks your photo identities and then yes more ***** taped lanes to transverse to the immigration officers. After an 11 hour flight we were despairing of the whole ” welcome to the United States of America”

Luggage pick up was a doddle after that experience.

On the brighter side we didn’t have to wait for the bus to the car hire across the city. The bus arrived just as we got to the waiting area with all our luggage.

And at the car hire we got a free upgrade to a larger car because one of the staff was from Hull.

Dad told her we were from Grimsby! He told her his mum used to cheer in the war when the German bombers ,bombed on Hull and not on Grimsby! She said her mother in Hull did the same when Grimsby got them …. LOL

We were so tired and it was only 9am so we asked at our hotel what was the earliest we can check in. He said they had a room ready already and we didn’t have to pay any extra. We were so pleased. We had a shower and crashed out fast asleep until 3pm

Then we went to get something to eat feeling very sleepy…

First pancakes

And salad

And cheesecake

And a short walk round old Pasadena we are now in our room planning where to explore for the next few days here.

I hope I didn’t complain too much…. but LAX is not an airport we would like to revisit!

Hi here are the photos I’ve been trying to download but defeated by poor wifi connection and the same reason as we went through to the lounge through security at the airport. I should have sent them after checking in when we were having breakfast at the Italian cafe in the airport lounge.

The pictures are of The Bird coast between Thames and Clevedon and also the Auckland Botanical Garden near Clevedon

Our flight time was an hour earlier than we expected. Our plans did not allow for the fact that USA changed their clocks last week. It was a good thing we arrived early!