Our 42 day trip through the United States was rapidly drawing to a close. We had only 3 nights left to spend in our RV before returning it in LA and boarding a plane for the next part of our adventure. After leaving the Sierra Nevada mountains, we headed back to the Pacific Ocean to spend one night in the city of Oxnard. I had never heard of Oxnard before. The reason we chose this town was because I had booked an Island Wildlife watching cruise to the nearby Channel Islands National Park an hour off the coast, and it happened to leave from Oxnard. We were a little late in the season to be whale watching, but there had been a lot of whale activity off this coast just recently due to the El Niño tides in South America messing with the normal migration patterns. Humpback whales had been spotted daily, and several blue whales had also been sighted in the area in the last week, as well as regular encounters with giant Sunfish or Mola-Mola, so I was quietly holding my breath.

That evening I frequented the most amazing taco van near our campsite, and enjoyed the best surf’n’turf tacos of my life. Unfortunately though, our campsite had neglected to leave us any keycards to access the facilities. Those of you who eat a lot of spicy Mexican food will appreciate that after an evening of Mexican food, the last thing you want to be without the following morning is a functioning toilet. So, after an emergency early-morning excursion to the nearest gas station to alleviate my not insignificant suffering, we left our campsite early and made our way to the nearby harbour. 

We sailed towards the island of Anacapa, and it wasn’t long before we ran into a pod of playful dolphins, dancing in the wake of our boat. I never get tired of watching these guys do their thing in the water, but I had my sights set on larger prey. All the time I was watching the dolphins, I kept one eye on the horizon looking for the telltale spurt of water giving away the position of any nearby whales having a sneaky rest on the surface.

By the time we reached Anacapa, we hadn’t spotted any whales, but there was still plenty of time yet. The captain expertly held the boat in the tiny harbour while the day trippers and overnight campers alighted and made their way up the cliff face to the national park. We then spent the next hour exploring the undisturbed coastline of this island, spotting huge herds of California Sea-lions chilling on the secluded beaches, as well as flocks of marine birds including blue cranes and pelicans.

On our journey back through the deep waters towards shore I was poised and ready to spot the various species of whales that we were DEFINITELY going to spot. There were more dolphins. There were more birds. There was lovely views of the distant Channel Islands. BUT WHERE WERE THE BLOODY WHALES. I know they’re not guaranteed, and I had tried to not get my hopes up too high, but needless to say I was once again a tad disappointed. We generally don’t have too much luck with this sort of thing, and it looked like this was heading in the same direction. Unfortunately the pesky whales didn’t want to play ball, and we had to be satisfied with the dolphins and a few more sea-lions on the beaches (and even on the dock) as we pulled back in. 

We had the whole afternoon to kill, so rather than head straight for our final campsite, we instead decided to spend a few hours at Santa Monica pier. The beach here is an endless expanse of golden sand and rolling blue waves, and it’s right in the middle of the city. I love it. And the pier is a proper pier, with shops, and food, and amusements, and rollercoasters, and fun, lots of it. Not like the pretty, but extremely pretentious pier in nearby Malibu, oh no – this is a proper pier. 

After lunch at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Co, we thought we would take a walk to the end of the pier, before checking out the theme park section, and that turned out to be a very good decision. We came across a family who had already spent all day at the theme park, and very kindly donated us their all-inclusive wristbands so the kids could ride for free! That compensated us for the ever so slightly ridiculous $40 parking fee, winning.

We didn’t quite know how the wristbands worked, so we slid them on the kids’ wrists and sent them into the first queue. Either it was going to work like a dream, or we would be instantly rumbled and booted off the premises. Amazingly, they were scanned straight in and enjoyed their first ride on the pirate ship without any trouble. Brilliant, we had cracked it. Their second ride, however, was not quite so simple. We didn’t know, but the wristbands were supposed to be on the right wrists, and the eagle eyed operator noticed Hunter’s was on the wrong wrist. Not realising he was about to give the whole game away, Hunter took it off and swapped it to his other wrist. There were no flashing lights or sirens, but needless to say they were ejected from the queue and told to speak to ticketing. We then had to blag the ticketing desk, telling them that they must have tied the wristband too loosely, and they had to replace it. “Receipt?” they asked. Nope, sorry, I paid cash and didn’t keep the receipt! “What time did you arrive?” they probed, having scanned the wristband. I thought we were rumbled. They obviously knew, and wanted to catch me out. Stay vague, I thought to myself – “I don’t know, my memory is shocking.” Haha, cant catch me! “OK, what was the last ride you went on?” The man thought he had me. If we had just found the wristband, there’s no way I could know what was the last ride the true owner went on, right. HAHA, WRONG AGAIN MR. TICKETMAN, luckily the kids had managed to go on one ride before being caught, so we knew the answer, and he had no choice but to give us another wristband. I know it seems petty, but precious few things are free in this world, and after the whale no-show that morning I was very glad of this small win.

While I was stood in the next queue, smugly contemplating my recent fleecing of the Pacific Park ticket booth, I noticed there was a rather professional looking camera outfit filming the chap stood next to me, who happened to be taking selfies of himself with my kids on a ride in the background. I thought he looked vaguely familiar, and mentioned to Kate that he bore a passing resemblance to Billy Zane. Well, then the penny dropped that it was Billy Zane, and his family, and they were being subtly filmed having a day at the pier. I resisted the urge to ask him for a selfie as he was with his family, but couldn’t resist grabbing a few cheeky snaps of him while we stood there. This must happen all the time in LA I guess, but it’s a novelty to me.

Santa Monica is the end of the Mother Road, Route 66, and is fairly heavily themed as such. There is a booth at the start of the pier where you are supposed to go when you finish the road, to sign the official register as a finisher. As we stood chatting to the proprietor about his various stories over the years, a 1974 Corvette Stingray rocked up having finished the road in just 8 days. It felt very fitting to be ending our trip here. I know we didn’t do the whole Route 66 trip, but we did duck in and out of the route over the past few weeks, and it feels like the whole ethos of Route 66 embodies the entire idea of the great American road trip. Maybe next time we’ll do that trip, in a classic American convertible, with great American breakdown assistance for obvious reasons!

We made our way to our final campsite to spend our last two nights in Hollywood. We needed a place to regroup and pack up the van before handing it back to Cruise America. Six weeks of spreading all our worldly belongings out in every nook and cranny of the RV was no mean feat to reassemble into well-ordered suitcases. But it seemed a shame to waste our time in Hollywood, so the next day we headed off for the quintessential Tinseltown experience, a studio tour. Most people opt for Hollywood Studios, combining a studio tour with a theme park experience, but apparently the most authentic tour experience is to be had at Warner Brothers. 

This intimate tour is guided by ex studio professionals who have in depth working knowledge of these working studios, meaning they should have stories to tell. Our guide, Ken, had more than a few stories to tell. Ken was ALL about the stories. He was an ex cameraman here on the lot, and if all of Ken’s stories were to be believed, he is the absolute toast of Warner Brothers, known personally by the great and the good of Hollywood. If you want my opinion, I think Ken’s stories may have a slight rose-tint to them. But who knows, I mean he did have a selfie with his best friend Gal Gadot on his phone. Unluckily (or maybe luckily) for Ken, he couldn’t prove his A-list connections as there was currently a writer’s strike in Hollywood, meaning the lots were currently not filming. Just like the bloody whales, the celebrities were not coming out to play today. It’s a good job we bumped into Billy Zane in Santa Monica, although Ken probably has him on speed dial anyway.

We spent an hour trawling the backlot with Ken, as he pointed out which of the buildings and streets had been used in which films and series through the years. He also showed us inside the Big Bang Theory sound stage, and the fountain from the opening credit scene of Friends. None of knew the vast majority of the American sitcoms and dramas Ken was constantly referencing, but it was cool nonetheless to see how malleable these permanent structures are in creating the various scenes and  backgrounds from 100 years of classic movies and TV.

Ken dropped us inside a converted soundstage for the final self guided part of the tour. This building contained the memorabilia from the many Marvel films, as well as Harry Potter, and of course the real money-shot, the original Central Perk cafe set of Friends. Ive always wanted to sit on that sofa. You can also experience the behind the scenes movie magic of sound editing and post production, as well as trying out green screen technology and forced perspective sets as used in LOTR to make the Hobbits seem tiny next to Gandalf without fancy editing. It was pretty hilarious to grab a few pictures sitting at a table with a giant Bam and a supersized Hunter across from me.

Having had our fill of movie magic, there was one more iconic LA sight that we had to see before heading home, and that was the famous Hollywood sign high in the hills overlooking the city. The best views of the sign can be had from the grounds of the Griffith Observatory, with the added bonus of being able to explore the observatory itself while you’re there. The sun was going down by the time our Uber driver finally managed to fight her way through the unbelievable amount of cars trying to access the peak, so we managed to grab some great pictures of the sign with a beautiful California sunset happening right behind it. 

We also found enough time to have a brief look around the Observatory. This place is a must-visit on any trip to LA according to most blogs I have read, and now I understand why. It is a free to enter facility, with multiple telescopes manned by knowledgeable guides trained on various celestial bodies in the day and night sky. There are also countless exhibits and hands on demonstrations of science and weather inside the building. We stuck around just long enough to see the century old Tesla Coil being lit up before we unfortunately had to beat a hasty retreat to our RV site. We hadn’t wanted to waste our day in Los Angeles, but we also had a huge amount of sorting and packing to do before handing our van back the next day.

Begrudgingly we all piled into another Uber and left the rest of the people enjoying the wonders of the night sky at the Observatory while we spent the next 3 hours rearranging our luggage and tidying our van. The following morning we set off early to the drop off point and returned our RV. I wouldn’t say I had a tear in my eye exactly, but I had become somewhat attached to the old girl over the last month and a half. It hadn’t been without its issues, Ive definitely been in better, and I have written a scathing email to customer services demanding some money back for the issues we encountered. But all in all it had been one hell of a trip. As a family (and that’s really my favourite part), we had covered 5175 miles across 10 states in 42 days, and I wouldn’t have changed a minute of it. 

We spent the night in a Holiday Inn near LAX airport, managing to chew through another week of home school between the hotel and waiting for our plane the following morning, all while we remembered the slew of amazing sights and experiences we have had together on this trip. All I can say is that I hope the next, and final section of our gap year is as amazing as this.

Next stop, Hawaii….