Douglas has a great collection of underwater photos of Anacapa Island and its underwater garden, just off the California Coast.

Looking at the Red Rocks in Sedona, Arizona, it took me back to one of those Hollywood westerns movies. The canyons, the red desert, the rugged landscape, the shrubs, the changing lights of the sun reflected on the undulating, sandstone rocks, shaped by time, wind and water, make Sedona a spectacular background.
A fascinating place of natural beauty but Sedona has also long attracted New Age devotees that flock here in thousands to get closer to the vortexes, the Earth’s energies focal points.


However, the strong mystical powers of Sedona combined with its majestic scenery drag along many upscale resorts, artist galleries and ticky-tacky tourist shops.

Have we felt the magical power? Mmm I did felt hot...and Chris seemed for once so peaceful...


But surely to get inspire and get in touch with nature you could simple get out there!
We felt much of its magnificence while driving around through the Highway 179 and the Highway 89, towards Flagstaff, while the road makes its way through the Canyon.


Now it’s time to hit Vegas babe!!

Insight:
There is a $10 entrance fee to the Red Rocks Park run by the Arizona State Parks, the price of beauty!
Despite that, the park will be closed on June ’10 for lack of money umm...should you hurry up??

Instead of figuring it out how to pass you on the feelings we had while driving for 800km on the Interstate-8 from San Diego leading east into Arizona, through Phoenix’s desert, continuing then north on the Black Canyon Freeway, I-17, till Sedona, we would leave those blurry pictures captured from the windshield of our quickly moving car to do the talking.

I guess for many Americans this will bring back memories of a family roadtrip and it might appear only as a short drive but to us it felt as an epic cross-country, roadtrip maybe because of the every-changing landscape and, apart the two big towns of Yuma and Phoenix, there where barely no one along the road, only us, the radio and our thoughts.

La Jolla made it a nice stop on our LA-San Diego’s route. The village of La Jolla is very pretty and set along the picturesque coastline, other than the parking is limited and, I'm imagining, it could drive you easily mad in the busy summer weekends.

What really stood out for us is La Jolla Underwater Park while, under the supervision of a lazy family of sea lions, we plunged into the shimmering deep blue water of the Pacific to swim among a marine forest of giant grass and side by side of a myriad of shining orange fishes, the popular Garibaldi fish which is also the official marine fish of the state of California.


This spot is also popular to catch a sight of the leopard sharks but the water was to cold to play hide and seek. Kayak rentals are also available from the main beach at $40ph for a double but if you got the gear just go head down from nearby Scripps Park, though climbing down the cliff is not really the easier and safer place to be.

After disentangled from the trafficked LA’s freeways and few days of rest in Laguna Beach we were ready to hit the road once again and experience the truly American Roadtrip with lots of motels-hopping!
To familiarize with the frenzy of this new travel-style, we made our first stop just less than a couple of hours away from Los Angeles, San Diego. The city is not WOW but it’s very pleasant: it has a pretty waterfront ,which is the touristy heart and also includes the Maritime Museum, charming neighbourhoods such as historic downtown Gaslamp Quarter, Little Italy, Coronado, Del Mar, Escondido and a great urban-cultural park, the Balboa Park.
It’s this 1,200-acre’s city park that, for us, holds the most interesting features in town like the Spanish-style buildings, the botanical gardens, 14 museums, theatres and the world-renowned San Diego Zoo, the highlight of our short stay in San Diego. It is home to 4’000 animals from all around the world including endangered wildlife. We roamed around the park for hours ‘n hours through the many habitants, the Forest Tales, the Monkey Trails, the Elephant Odyssey, the Urban Jungles, the Rainforest Aviary and many many more, gazing at the most beautiful and exotics creatures like the elegant puma, the majestic California condor, the insatiable polar bears, the lazy giant panda, the playful gorillas, the curious meerkats... it is pretty cool.

As consequence of this exhausting, long-day “safari” we had a great appetite and, since we had to make up for the calories burned, what best than a classic fish&chips by the locals’ favourite Fishette? It’s the fast food alternative to the legendary Anthony’s Fish Grotto restaurant. It might not have a full service but the fish was great, cheap and we managed to eat al fresco within the pretty harbour, good enough for us.

Nevertheless, considering the proximity of San Diego to the Mexican border you will find also around town plenty of opportunities to have a taste of spicy Mexican specialities like enchiladas, empanada and burritos.

The damage:
Downtown motel $66 a night for a double room; entrance San Diego Zoo $29 each with a discount coupon; Fishette dinner $30.
If you plan to stay around for longer and visit also the San Diego Wild Animal Park, SeaWorld or the Balboa Park it worth to look around for one of the many combo tickets available that suit you best. Passport to Balboa Park one-day pass for 5 chosen museums is $35 or if you stick around every Tuesdays on a rotating basis each museums is free.

Three movies, few high-flying turbulent naps and 9 hours up in the air separated us from Rarotonga to LA.

As landed, we were knackered and disoriented. Nevertheless, we had to sit in the plane for 20 mins waiting for the USA customs to give us the ahead, go through the caos of LAX international airport, the frustrating immigration (they surely didn’t appreciate my sense of humour, I wouldn’t do it again), before we could paid a visit to the almost inexistent tourist welcome desk trying to figure it out how to reach Laguna Beach, there were no choice than by taxi only.

But a couple of hours away from the merging, chaotic freeways of Los Angeles, Laguna Beach was a complete different story, a nice surprise. First of all, because we got the pleasure to stay with a cousin of mine which was so nice to kindly host us until we planned our next moves. After months where our home was on wheels, it was great to have a proper bed to slip into at night and no worry to rush away. I think I had my best sleep ever! Then, Laguna Beach is just such a charming, little city with a great thriving artistic community, fantastic little cafe’ and eateries, funky shops and pretty (big) houses nestled in a beautiful natural setting with pristine coves and the blue ocean plus the people are so laid-back.. not exactly what we would expected at first from a place like this.


Maybe that’s why Los Angeles didn’t have a chance to blow us away or perhaps we only didn’t understand it. Wandering around LA Downtown we felt like being trap in a concrete jungle, most of it filled with businesses, although there are few sightseeing worth to mention, like the huge stainless steel work-of-art of Walt Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry, which really stand out, and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
China Town, Little Tokyo and Olvera Street, the touristy Mexican street, felt ... kinda boring. Plus we were highly recommended not to venture in certain neighbourhoods, should you worry?


With no much to do Downtown, the next days we swung back to the airport and picked up a rental car to explore the other LA, the glamorous and cool neighbourhoods. We snaked across Beverly Hills, the super stylish - super expensive branded stores at Rodeo Drive, vintage Melrose Place, through the flashing lights of Hollywood Boulevard where we sought for the famous stars beneath our feet, up the hill to the infamous Hollywood’s sign. We went people-watching in Venice Beach, home to quirky people like the resides at Muscle Beach, oiled up men strolling along in small speedos, few bohemians around the 3th Promenade and, when we had enough, unwound around Santa Monica Beach, Long Beach and windy Malibu’ Beach.


What’s your view over this car-dependent city and its districts?

A few months ago, after an exhausting flight, we finally landed in the USA, the last part of our RTW trip. Originally we thought of driving cross-country from LA to NY but have been advised not to waste our time speeding along the epic route 66, through too vast empty spaces, too boring. So we decided to focus our energy and budget on two coastal routes, along The Pacific Coast and the Atlantic Coast, and on a tour across the wilderness of some of the best known Californian and Arizona National Parks.

Over the past months we were busy sorting out our travel, sitting behind the wheel for long hours, finding a motel for the night, eating fast food. As result leaving little energy and time for blogging.

This is because America is undoubtedly huge and its size makes even the most intrepid travellers dizzy to get around it. There isn’t really an extensive and efficient transport system that could get you everywhere with no hassle. USA isn’t either a backpacker budget destination, so we couldn’t really waste precious time and money to rest on our laurels and had to keep gaining ground.

Plus, if you consider that when Chris and I are tired we could barely think straight in Italian imagining it in English, you know... we are only two Wops who love travel around the world but far from being travel writers (even if we give always our best shot).

Maybe we should have followed the “Strategies for keeping up with your blog once you start travelling” by David or Anil’s advices on “Quick things to post on your travel blog when you are travelling too much to write”, aren’t they great?

Anyway, what we are trying to say is that we are now going to catch up with all our travel tales from our USA road trip, where the journey itself, rather than the destination, was the real protagonist and the nitty-gritty is that we managed to enjoy yet many sunshine days.