"Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles." - Frank Lloyd Wright

For the third and final leg of our trip we started out bright and early for a drive down the Pacific Coast highway from Monterey to Los Angeles.

Among many beautiful sights, we saw Bixby Bridge...

The lighthouse at Point Sur State Historic Park...

 And more beautiful coastlines.

At one point we stopped for coffee at a random general store in the mountains and the shop keep informed us that Route 1 was closed ahead and drew us a wonderfully helpful detour map.  While talking, he mentioned a waterfall in the Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park.  He said it was an easy walk so we decided to take his advice.

So glad we did (adorably someone had written "will you marry me" to their girlfriend in the sand... we didn't see the couple, just the question left in the sand below, but we thought that was pretty good)

 Our detour wound us up into the mountains so we had a fantastic aerial view of Route 1.

 

Toward the end of our detour, we drove through an army base.  The terrain seemed like something out of Jurassic Park.

Although we missed Hearst Castle due to the detour, we did get to check out Big Sur and randomly stopped for a pretty good Mexican meal in Grover Beach.

All along the sights were beautiful, but not exactly what I had expected of southern California.  That is until we reached Santa Barbara.  It was the California of my imagination for sure.

When we finally got to LA our hotel in West Hollywood was amazing, and we had a great dinner at Koi.  We started with the edamame and the spicy crunchy yellowtail tar tar.  The tar tar was exceptional.  For dinner we split the baked crab hand roll, the spicy rock shrimp tempura hand roll, the dragon roll, and a spicy tuna roll.  With the exception of the baked crab hand roll, which was relatively bland, everything was delicious (I decided not to tag us as complete tourists with pictures of each course).

After dinner, exhausted from a full day of driving, we went back to our hotel and crashed.  The next morning we met with another set of B's high school friends for brunch at R+D Kitchen in Santa Monica.  B had the burger and I had the omlett (with goat cheese, spinach, and mushrooms).  Both were amazing and we split a side of delicious shoestring fries.

After lunch we said our goodbyes and headed off to take in the touristy "must sees" - Rodeo Drive, the Hollywood sign (from afar), Venice Beach, Pinkberry (hello delicious), and the Chinese Theater.

[Samuel L. Jackson!]

Although the driving and the red eye were the most relaxing we really had a fantastic vacation.