An LA Road Trip - Part 2
We jumped in taxis and headed to a great little place, the only rooftop bar in Venice Beach with a superb view of the beach and sunset. When we arrived we had been given the best seats in the house! It had a chilled out vibe but very cool and was a perfect start to our evening in Santa Monica. I have never seen a sky the colour that we saw that evening. We had a couple of hours just enjoying the view and a couple of drinks. It was also interesting watching the number of planes waiting to land in LA Airport!
We went back to the hotel to get ready for our evening plans, an arranged site visit of the Loews Santa Monica. This evening was my favourite of the whole trip. After our site visit we were offered the opportunity to experience the patio area of the hotel with its amazing fire pits. It was too good an opportunity to pass up so we found our fire pit. The hotel provided blankets and we all sat snuggly by the fire enjoying the superb view of the pier. The only thing that would have made this any better was dinner and drinks. Cue Julio, our server, arriving to ask how he could make us happy! We said pizza and hot chocolate - he said no problem! Even though pizza wasn’t on the menu they gave us he arranged for the kitchen to prepare fresh home-baked pizzas for us which we enjoyed with hot chocolate laced with Baileys! He made us very happy that night! Full of fabulous food and felling very content with our evening in Santa Monica we made our way back to the Meridien Delfina for a good night’s sleep!
The next morning we had quite a full day planned. After a lovely breakfast provided by the hotel, we loaded the cars and started off on our next adventure - Palm Springs via Beverly Hills! Now this was exciting!
It was a short 20 minute drive from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills where we parked up (with two hours free parking in Beverly Hills! I can’t get two hours free parking in Mansfield) and explored iconic Rodeo Drive. It was everything I expected and more! What a place! Every designer brand you can think of, true glitz and glamour that I expected. After a spot of lunch in a little Korean place we began our expedition to find the Sprinkles Cupcake ATM. We were not disappointed! This machine made me very happy! I ordered my chocolate and peanut butter cupcake, swiped my card and it appeared in the little dispenser drawer like magic (well not quite, it shows you the video of the machine fetching your cupcake all the way through to delivery!) Cupcake purchased we got back on the road for our longest drive of the trip, just under three hours to Palm Springs.
The drive was a little more stressful than it should have been as we chose one of the only days of the year that the desert decided it needed rain! It was dark, wet and with no road lighting. It was totally worth it though when we arrived at our final hotel, the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells. A huge resort style hotel, fantastic for families with lots of activities for children, excellent golf facilities and a luxurious spa. It also had fantastic rooms that were huge and very modern in design with modern amenities. I really liked this hotel a lot. As we had arrived fairly late, at 7pm in the evening, we grabbed a quick dinner at a local Mexican restaurant before arriving back at the hotel to find live entertainment in the bar! We had a fab night of dancing and meeting the locals and residents of the hotel before retiring for a much needed night of rest!
The next morning we had a free day. We visited the Living Desert first thing which was an interesting place with lots for families to see and do. We then decided to visit the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. The -2c temperature, zero visibility and four feet of snow didn’t put us off, in our short sleeved tops and jeans! So we emptied the car of every spare piece of clothing that had been discarded throughout the trip and made our way to the base station. We stood in the queue with everyone around us wearing snowsuits, padded attire and sturdy boots and we felt a little unprepared! The trip up was fabulous, with a rotating floor to the cable car, everyone got a fabulous view until we disappeared into the cloud that sat on top of the mountain.
On reaching the top we were so pleased that we had decided to continue with the trip as experiencing snow in California was a real treat. With a fabulous viewing platform and an indoor café area we enjoyed snacks and hot chocolate before braving the elements for the obligatory group selfie! After a lot of laughing we made our way back down to the base station. Only a 30 minute drive and we were back to the resort in time for a hot cup of tea by the fire pit on the patio before our early dinner. The food was superb. I’d never tried dates before but will definitely be having them again and I enjoyed the most amazing steak! Enjoyed with a couple of Gin and Tonics it was the perfect way to spend our last evening on what had been an amazing trip.
We checked out the next morning and loaded the cars up for the final time to begin our last drive to the airport. We had a short stop at Desert Hills Premium Outlet mall to get some last minute shopping before back on the road to LA Airport. This was a much better drive, in daylight and perfect sunshine, so we got to see what the drive should have been like the few days earlier. The Highway was clear and no hold ups meant we arrived at the airport on schedule and with very little fuss in finding the Alamo depot. Car dropped off and the bus back to the airport went so smoothly, it was a truly great end to a fantastic trip!