Part 3 / San Diego - Dana Point - LA - Santa Monica - Santa Barbara - Monterey/Carmel - Mountain View

Our final leg of the road trip would start with a change of plans. Actually, we wanted to go to Tihuana, but with my bad experiences with the American border control and horror stories of stolen cars on the Mexican border, we decided to pass.

So we went to the most important sight in San Diego right away - the world famous zoo! There are quite a few really great zoos that I have seen so far, but none of them had a double-decker bus and a cable car...only in America.

Our next place to sleep was probably the most beautiful - which means something after the great overnight stays just outside Yosemite. We parked our van in Dana Point, just up a hill, with great views of the sunset and just a few steps away from a beach - which would bring both of us a severe sunburn the next day.

After spending half a day at the beach and getting a healthy lobster-red colour, we drove up to pay Los Angeles a quick visit. We only took a quick stroll up and down Hollywood Boulevard and drove through Beverly Hills - maybe we weren't keen on big cities after nature's beauties anymore - drove through Santa Monica and spent the night in Malibu (CA).

The next day, we had to work our way through quite a few miles along Highway one and thus had only time to do a "picture drive-by" through Santa Barbara and spend the night on a nice hill just before a 87-mile-No Camping-zone.

After Monterey and Carmel (see earlier blog post), we decided to pay the beautiful city of Mountain View a visit. It is well known for a company offering employees free shower facilities on site and we wanted to visit this highlight. :)

Bonus: Pictures from the 4th of July fireworks in San Francisco... coming soon.