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Today we got some tickets to go and see the space shuttle exhibition at the science center.
Ramona let me drive her car to the metro station, at first i was little nervous but overall got my confidence back and feel for the left hand drive vehicle.
After successfully parallel parking the car we got onto the metro system to travel few stops down to the museum.Going through the beautiful rose gardens into the museum, we see aircraft suspended above us and the million other interesting things to look at.
After going through the introduction to the history of the aircraft we go through into the hangar where the aircraft is positioned.
The aircraft is a lot bigger than i anticipated and had amazing presence about it.
Seeing the missions the endeavor has accomplished put a lump in the throat, considering the effort people go to to make sure everything is perfect and works well to achieve a completed mission.
After much viewing of the aircraft we went around the science center to see other space exhibits and some marine life.
Overstimulated by the museum we headed toward the garment district where i picked out some beads for my little project I’m doing, there was so much choice it was difficult to pick out the winning combination but eventually i got the right mix.
Afterwards we headed toward the famous Union Station where we sat and people watched for a little while and even met some bicycle tourers who were on beginning of their journey.
Walking around the city there was so much to see and do, even in the Mexican district with all the shut stalls.
That evening we were going to meet up with Tom who was eager to visit a talk by Lisa Randall , who was quantum scientists and publisher of knocking on heaven’s door: how physics and scientists thinking illuminate the universe and the modern world.
Unfortunately Tom was running late but we managed to catch the tail end of the interview and the book signing.
Leaving with profound thoughts and questions it was definitely a worth while talk to visit.
Tired from extremely busy day we headed back.

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I messed up with the updates and the website looks different as you can see, please bear with us while my friend Tom fixes my mistake, Hopefully back to normal within few days.

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Barbara walks two dogs every morning for her neighbors and today we were invited to walk the dogs with her, we loved the opportunity and got up early.
The two dogs had both very different personalities and i got to walk the Chihuahua, who was very buoyant and attempted to hunt squirrels.Walking around the local park it is easy to forget that we are in large city, the park is well maintained and has a lot of sport activities.
After returning the dogs to Barbara i got ready to go and see the Watt Towers 10 miles away, as i haven’t ridden my bike for a while i decided to go by bicycle.
Going through the back streets i got a good feel for the area, tamale vendors would be distributing food and lots of homes would be playing Mexican music and setting up seating for a party, all i wanted to do was stop and join in.
As i got closer to the towers i stooped of at a snack shop to get some food and got talking to a man who had mouthful of gold teeth , we talked for some time and he was a family man with 11 kids and has relocated from east to west for the good weather, as he said that the rain started to drizzle.
This is not the weather i imagined when i though of L.A. , but non the less i cycled on to the towers.
When i got there there was no one there, probably due to the weather, the towers were spectacular and towered over the neighborhood.
The towers were personal project of Simon Rodia for over 33 years, who received much negativity and hardship during their construction, he eventually retired from the project and moved away.
The history of the towers is very intense and full of surprises, luckily they have survived and are being constantly kept up to good structural standard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Towers
At the end of viewing the towers i was wet enough and cold enough to want to cycle back to somewhere warm. I cycled back through the city and tried different routes to get back to Barbaras house. When i did manage to make it back we had a full dinner with chilly, and stuffed peepers and chocolate deserts, it all tasted amazing and the company was great too.

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Finally i was in Los Angeles my last city to get to know before returning home, i have till 28th to see as much as i can before packing up the bike and returning to UK.
Looking outside of the window onto the garden we enjoyed a quick breakfast and looked onto the cloudy weather outside and wondered whether the rain would hold off or not.Barbara kindly offered to drop us off at the bus stop where we could catch a bus heading towards the Getty art museum.
The bus ride was easy and straight forward, after inter-change we got onto another bus which got us to the Getty museum.
Getty museum was started by J. Paul Getty who was a wealthy oil company owner who loved art and wanted to share it with people.
After his passing his legacy lived on and the construction of the new building allowed for the art to be exhibited in great art institution.
The architecture and the gardens surrounding the area fit perfectly into the hills and complement the landscape, although the local population was resilient to its initial construction, the positive benefits far outweigh the initial negativity of spoiling someones view from their mansion in the hills.
As we entered the gallery i was blown away by the space, we got ourselves some iPods with audio library for hundreds of exhibits on show that we could have additional audio information.
me and tom had different plans on how we wanted to see the gallery and we split, i headed towards renaissance and followed the art through time.
The whole gallery took us the best part of the day to navigate through and to take in the art work.
The photography exhibits were by far the most inspirational to me, no photography of photographs meant that i cant share it with you but please check out Ray K. Metzker and Robert Mapplethorpe work.
A walk in the garden was an added bonus before regrouping with Tom to try and figure out what we would do next as it was 4:45.
After quick browse of the internet we though we would travel to downtown to have a look at the area, so i assumed wrongly that it would be a simple task of getting a bus and transferring from bus to bus to get to where we needed to go.
So i got to the help desk and posed the question of how to get to Hollywood, with blank expression the lady behind the desk was trying her hardest not to laugh at me.
She explained that it is a mystery and it would be a miracle if we manage to get back from down town to Ingelwood, she even pulled out the transportation folder, which was jammed with paperwork.
As she was clearing dust from her folder lady at the help desk intervened and got her smart phone out to give us help with places to eat and where we are to be heading.
After about 30 minutes of back and forth of conversation with the help desk and lady next to me we derived what we wanted to would be impossible if we wanted to get back home in time, so Lock (lady with smartphone) said “right you two will come with me”.
We introduced our self to her and her friend, who i still don’t name off as he had a really difficult accent and hard to understand.
We got into their massive 4 x 4 and i started to have questions at the back of my mind about what was about to happen, as this was California Lock got her prescription out before driving the vehicle, which to me was not far off being a tank with rubber wheels.
As got out of museum and joined the road Lock drooped little bits of information to us as she sped through the city on her prescription, apparently it was her friends car and she hasn’t driven it much.
Eventually we got into Hollywood and i was glad to be on my two feet and out of the tank.
Walking around the area we looked at the stars and the visual attractions surrounding the Hollywood walk.
We got to see the imprints of feet and hands that are in front of the famous restaurant and really cool costumes and street performers.
majority of the street was filled with tattoo parlors and smoke shops, all cashing in on the tourism that the street attracts.
I’m really glad i got to see it but i was glad to be back in the vehicle heading home at the end of the night.
We thanked lock for her kindness and her mad driving and got to bed, not bad for first day in L.A..

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We got up nice and early to make great time into LA, we said goodbye to everyone in the household.
As we got onto the road i already knew the whole day would be filled with grey clouds and moody setting, although it made for some easy riding.For the first 30 miles we followed the coastline and saw coastline and the cliffs for the majority of the ride, at times stooping to take photographs of the lifeguard station or mysterious strawberries spread all over the road.
Getting closer to L.A. we cycled through Malibu, where lavish homes lined the coastline with each having their own individual look and feel.
As impressive as they were they all looked similar to each other and followed similar trend of design.
After getting out of Malibu we got into Los Angeles and we rode for a while on the beach till we got into town, the traffic was relentless and it seemed like no one walked anywhere and car was the only reasonable mode of transportation.
The city seems big and overwhelming, i’m going to enjoy trying to discover all it has to offer.
We met our couch surfing host Barbara who was super welcoming and took us into her home.
Barbara is from UK and instantly i was glad to hear familiar accent and offering of cup of tea to our arrival.
We spoke for a while and after getting a quick shower we went to Mexican restaurant accompanied by fellow couch surfer who kindly treated us to this meal.
The meal was grand and i felt amazingly satisfied by the dish i had, afterwards we got back and Barbara helped us with the to do list for LA.
It’s going to be an exiting city to get to know.

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I woke up the tent and forgot where i was it took me a while to realise as i could hear the water flowing nearby and the sound of birds.
Getting up still dazed i made my way to the hot springs, i was the only one there watching the sun come up, what an experience.
After while i was really warmed up and I was curious what it would feel like to go from very hot spring to cold freezing river.Staring at the cold river was intimidating enough as the water is really clear and appears to be ice cold, as i step instantly the cold i lose balance and jump straight in, only lasting 5 seconds i run out and try to warm up, it didn’t take long for me to get into the hot springs.
tom was awake at this point and we spent some time relaxing and had breakfast afterwards and taking our time packing up our gear.
As we ferried our gear up the hill we said goodbye to really cool set of people that we met during our short stay.
Leaving was hard but a necessary, we were traveling to meet and stay with Toms cousin who lives in Camarillo.
Tom was really exited to meet his cousin for the first time and to get to her better.
We stooped of on the way at coffee shop where we recharged our batteries before pushing on to Camarillo.
When we arrived Katie welcomed us into her home and we met her sons and her friends, it was great atmosphere and we instantly felt great vibe.
We enjoyed a great meal and i even learned how to wrap a burrito properly, this unique skill will definitely become useful when making burritos on the road.
I still had a cough which comes out at certain time in the day and i took some medicine to try and cure it i took some codeine based cough syrup and now was supper drowsy and in the end succumbed to the bed.

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Cindy the night before has let us know of some hot springs just outside Ojai, as we were unable to go to hot springs in Big Sur we were hopeful we finally get to some as they were close to the road and only little bit out the way from our route.
In the morning Drew offered to cycle with us for 10 miles and show us a good route out of town and much more beautiful route.As we were leaving Santa Barbara we went through really nice parts of the city, where classical sports cars lined the streets casually, my mouth was dragging on concrete as i cycled past.
Eventually we got onto the bicycle path and said our thanks and goodbyes to Drew.
At the end of the bicycle path we were to make a difficult decision,, whether to take a much flatter route on 101 but deal with the heavy traffic or take 150 hilly route with narrow shoulder but amazing scenery.
We were trying to make a decision for a while but in the end we let the coin decide for us, we flicked the coin and got route 150 as our route.
As we headed up the steep hills we were glad it was 150, as the scenery was simply stunning and not as monotonous as route 101.
The hills weren’t event that difficult and as we got to the top we had a beautiful reward for our efforts of climbing the hills.
At the top we met a new vesper owner who was staring into the distance as we arrived, with his bright yellow machine and red helmet we talked to him for a while about his scooter and the local area.
Afterwards we made a descent down past the lake into outskirts of Ojai and up into the hills again on route 33.
As we got closer to the hot springs the roads got worse, and at points dangerous as cycling on pot holes can be testing experience for any cyclist.
But we got to the hot springs which were down the steep foot path on the side of the road before the stop sign.
As we brought our bikes down we saw large group of people dotted around lying in the hot springs.
We jumped into thee hot springs and instantly i could feel the benefits of them, finally after such long time waiting we got some hot springs.
We even found a really cool spot to set up camp right next to cold springs, after food we were hoping to meet with friends who were making their way from L.A..
Unfortunately they couldn’t make it to us and we were really sad, but getting into the hot springs and staring into the space made it all OK again.
As there is no light pollution and no clouds that night we had the most beautiful view of the stars and met some amazing people, as it is very popular spot for young people to meet up, there was singing music and amazing conversations.
It was magical way to spend time at the hot springs and to really get the benefits, tomorrow would be hard to leave.

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