CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles
We arrived at LAX after an 11 hour flight in which I’d watched a lot of films, Risky Business, GoT, Dexter, Great Gatsby, at 2pm, it was lovely and sunny. Got a shuttle bus to the car hire and picked up a compact car from National, we had a choice of a ford fiesta or Hyundai Accent, we went for the latter, all cars were in excellent condition. Found driving easy as it was automatic and there aren’t any roundabouts, confusing at first being on the other side both inside the car and on the road. Found where we were staying quite easily and easy to park.
We were staying in Brentwood that night in a granny annex as part of the air bnb scheme. It was a lovely room with a double bed, kitchen, bathroom and guest bed.
The host, Sue was friendly and kept out of our hair which was nice. The area was amazing. Huge houses and lovely cafes and shops.
Breakfast in Brentwood, Santa Monica beach, the Hollywood sign
We had booked to go see the Baseball that night so we got back in the car and drove to a station near the stadium to get the shuttle bus. only it wasn’t a station near the stadium, we had chosen the wrong address and driven to another part of LA completely! After 3 hours of driving around LA we gave up on trying to find the stadium and found a burger place to eat. The food and the areas we had driven around in LA were disappointing and we went to bed feeling unimpressed by LA.
The next day we woke up and walked down the street a block to Brentwood’s Sweet Mary Kane’s bakery for breakfast. It was immense, I had granola and really huge fresh berries and yoghurt and a good latte. Rach and Rich enjoyed scrambled eggs with spinach and smoked salmon. The neighbourhood was beautiful, huge houses, all different with amazing gardens, very much like the houses on Clueless!
Then we headed to the Santa Monica beach. It was huge, really wide, it was quite a long walk out to the sea, and the sea was fresh and cool. We checked out the lifeguard towers and the famous pier then walked back and drove into the hills.
Mulholland Drive overlooks town and had spectacular views with I expect huge very well hidden houses dotted randomly along it.we then drove into Hollywood, ticking off the sights; Rodeo Drive (posh shops), Sunset Boulevard (very long road with lots of different parts), dropped Rich at Amoeba Records (his heaven), the famous stars, got a look at the Hollywood sign, grabbed some hotdogs from a disused railway cart then drove out of town to Barstow. The landscape around LA was hilly/mountainous, grey and quite industrial. Here we stayed at Rodeway Inn, that night we went to a drive in movie, and watched we’re the millers.
The next morning we ate in the iHop (international house of pancakes), I had strawberry and banana pancakes, Rach had French toast and Rich had a combo! We then drove to Williams, it was about a 4-5 hour drive. Unfortunately I got pulled over for speeding on the highway but the police officer found my licence funny so let me off.
ARIZONA
Williams is a gorgeous little old fashioned town just outside the Grand Canyon, we loved it here. Lovely residents, good restaurants, pretty forests surrounding it and lovely balmy weather.
That night we had drinks in Sultana bar and ate dinner and listened to music in the diner next door. I had pulled pork sandwich which was immense. The portions here were big, especially drinks!
We stayed at Route 66 inn, which was budget at $68 per night for the room.
On Tuesday morning we had breakfast at county inn restaurant, which was so lovely, really old fashioned and amazing home cooked food and excellent service. I had French toast light (french toast, fruit and yoghurt) and orange juice and Annie Oakley latte!
Then we drove to the Grand Canyon which was actually spectacular and vast! The changes in landscape were amazing, here it was wooded but we had driven through quite desert-like landscapes with cacti and other areas with grass and heather bushes. We were lucky enough to see some wild elk, which were huge and beautiful.
Saw wild elks, birds, squirrels?
On our way to Holbrook, we drove through Navajo Reserve, there wasn’t much to look at to be honest, it would have been good to have a visitors centre, but perhaps we missed it? Holbrook was very small, just a stop along the huge road really. We wanted to stay in the famous teepees but they were fully booked. We stayed in Desert Inn and ate at the steakhouse down the road. The windows of the restaurant had cutout silhouetted people in and reminded me of Home Alone, when Kevin stages a party. The ribs were delicious with a salad cart, mash and roasted vegetables, a nice change from fries and slaw 🙂.
The Desert Inn was very cheap at $48 per night, but we had a hilarious night as we kept getting woken up by really loud trains hooting as they went through town and traffic on the road the other side of us, accompanied by noisy air con!! The trains are huge here, maybe a mile long and carry heavy goods and seem to follow the I40, the road we were traveling!
The next morning after having an amazing breakfast burrito at joe and aggie’s cafe, Holbrook, (Joe and Aggie’s is very local, friendly, could do with a lick of paint, but the food is freshly cooked and tasty and service is great) we visited the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, on the way to Albuquerque, both just ticks in a box, they weren’t amazing and could have been missed. The tourist information given at these sites was boring and uninspiring, unlike the places I visited in Australia last year! Rich thought they could incorporate some rides or golf buggies into the forest to make it more interesting, I’d go for some information boards or interactive panels. The landscape was desert like around here, lots of mountainous roads and colourful, layered stoney hills.
NEW MEXICO
Now, I wasn’t expecting much from Albuquerque, but I was soon corrected. We checked into a Best Western Executive for a bit of luxury, I had a swim, sauna and dip in the jacuzzi and made friends with Reid an 8 year old little boy who loved zombie computer games and racing me in the swimming pool!
Then we got ready and went to Frontiers, another restaurant recommended in theRoadfood: The Coast-To-Coast Guide to 800 of the Best Barbecue Joints, Lobster Shacks, Ice Cream Parlors, Highway Diners, and Mu (Roadfood: The Coast-To-Coast Guide to the Best Barbecue) by Jane and Michael Stern. Frontiers was a Mexican restaurant, very local, amazing food and great for people watching. We ordered at a canteen style counter, got drinks from well stocked drinks machines, got a booth and collected our food. Rach had a veggie burrito, Rich had tortilla soup and frontier burrito and I had a combo. The food was immense, so fresh and tasty, and actually felt healthy! The man who took our order was so lovely, i wanted to give him a big hug, i still wasn’t used to the amazing american customer service! The restaurant seemed to have a nice mix of people, younger people from the university across the road, doctors in scrubs from the local hospital and families. Most of the towns (or cities as they call everything out here) that we had driven through had had an older population. People in Frontiers were debating around big tables, playing board games and relaxing, it was a really enjoyable experience.
We wanted something sweet to eat so we popped into Route 66 diner on our way home, it looked amazing inside and out, like a 50s diner. We had milkshake and Rach had a cherry pie, my mint choc chip shake was amazing. The diner was so well decorated with elvis, Marilyn and rock n roll memorabilia. The waitress was so lovely, so smiley and helpful and cheery.
The next morning after a lovely nights sleep we had breakfast at the hotel, said goodbye to my friends Reid and Bonnie and went into town. Rich visited a record and thrift store and me and Rach went for a latte in a cafe. Overall I really liked Albuquerque, it’s quirky, arty, friendly and relaxed.
We stopped at Cline’s Corner, a cool 1950s style highway stop, with lots of truckers.
TEXAS
Next stop was Amarillo. We found a lovely Mexican Restaurant with live music, where we had nachos, a veggie platter (do you want meat with that followed by a puzzled look when we said no thanks) and taco salad.
We also had a couple of drinks in a bar next door to dodge the rain and checked out the closed shops, antiques, thrift stores and leather stores.
The next day we had a real problem finding somewhere to eat for breakfast and ended up in iHop for pancakes. Amarillo seemed to have a lot of closed down stores, at least one restaurant recommended in our roadfood book was no longer open. It didn’t really seem to have a tourist trade and was less affluent than towns we’d stopped at previously. This drive showed a change in the landscape, we saw pumps in fields surrounding the highway, they looked like humans, but much bigger, I think they were pumping oil, but I wasn’t sure.
The next stop was Fort Worth, a stop we were all excited about, because rumour had it there were actual real life cowboys there! And boy, we were not disappointed! We drove into the old town towards the stockyards, a cobbled area of town with a rodeo, wooden built bars, cowboy outfitters, antique shops and tourist paraphernalia. We checked out Miss Molly’s in town but it was fully booked so we had a couple of drink in the White Elephant bar, which was had cowboys and very American clientele. It was great! We met a gang or drunk but friendly locals. We then found a hotel on the edge of town and came back into town to eat at the famous Cattlehouse. The steak was amazing and beer was served in glasses as big as your head (well my head anyway!). After a few drinks in a bar where we watched people do some amazing country dancing and saw some amazing cowboys and cowgirls we headed home.
The next day we had a day off of driving!!! So we had a lay in and found somewhere to have lunch in downtown Fort Worth, which reminded me of Cabot Cove in Murder She Wrote. The food again was beautiful (I had root beer and grilled chicken sandwich) and our waiter, Chris was super nice. Texas seemed to be the place where people said y’all and mmhhmm a lot, I loved it!
We drove back into the Stockyards part of town to check out the shops and wander around the market, petting zoo and museum. We caught the parade, on at 4pm everyday, where cowboys on horses walk cattle through town, a great thing to see! We also caught a rodeo that night after having a few drinks in an outdoor bar whilst watching some live music in Love Shack. The Rodeo was a good experience, not altogether lovely, felt bad for the animals but it was good to go to one whilst we were in this part of the world as I missed out on the whole Australian cowboy lifestyle. No humans or animals were injured and we got our concession hotdogs so all was good. I learnt that Fort Worth and Dallas were very wealthy and very competitive, Fort Worth making money in cattle. You could really see the money in this town, everything and everyone was big. Men I thought were muscly in the UK would have looked like beanpoles here! Lots of people wore cowboy hats and boots with spurs, everyone wore jeans.
The next day we got up early, had breakfast in the hotel and drove through Dallas on the way to Little Rock, Arkansas…
ARKANSAS
The drive from Dallas to Texakana was filled with beautiful farmland, ranches, lakes and wooded areas. This half of the state was a lot greener and seemed a lot more prosperous than west Texas. We got to Little Rock and booked into La Quinta Hotel and later went to Purple Cow restaurant.
Little Rock seemed to be very residential with little else to see. The restaurant was nice and the people ever so friendly. I think this was the first place we noticed how different the accent was in the south, everyone seemed happier and friendlier too. The next day we got ready and headed to Memphis, home of Graceland, Sun Studio and Stax Records. Rich was very excited. That day once we’d arrived in Memphis we went to Graceland, home of Elvis Presley and did the tour of the house, which was really good. The decor was amazing and it was good to find out more about Elvis.
Then we checked into our motel – American Inn, on Elvis Presley Boulevard, don’t stay here it was awful! We freshened up and went to get some food at The Cupboard. (https://www.thecupboardrestaurant.com/)
And then walked to the famous Beale Street to have some drinks and catch some live music at the Jerry Lee Lewis bar. We watched a covers band here, they were fantastic, the singer was so charismatic and a great performer. Beale Street is fantastic, lots of live music bars, bandstands outside, a really good happy vibe.
The next day we went to Blue Plate Cafe (http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g55197-d489618-Reviews-Blue_Plate_Cafe-Memphis_Tennessee.html) in town, the good was immense, I had Eggs Benedict, you also get a choice of hash browns or biscuits and gravy and a side of toast or pancakes!
Then we drove to Sun Studio where Johnny Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc. had recorded and black music was first recorded.
The tour was brilliant, the tour guide was so enthusiastic and happy and knew lots about the history of the studios and music. After a coffee break we found Stax Records and discovered how soul music was first made.
Stax Records was really good, a video to start and then an exhibition about gospel, country, blues and honky Tonk music before soul music. Then displays about Ike and Tina Turner, Isaac Hughes, Luther Ingram, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke. We went back to our motel and after a rest we headed into town for some barbequed ribs at Charles Vergo’s Rendezvous Ribs (http://www.hogsfly.com/). Again, the food and service was fantastic. We had sausage and cheese to start with small ribs, which came with a side of BBQed beans and slaw. The ribs were so meaty and tasty. The restaurant was huge and busy, even on a Tuesday evening. After rolling out of the restaurant we went home to enters meat coma!
The next day we headed out early to Nashville…
Rachel Jillions 