Summary: Driving down the Pacific coast in California, watching otters in Monterey and singing karaoke with Vinnie Jones in Santa Monica.

Full version: We left Napa wine country with sore heads and weather to match. The first part of our drive down Pacific Coast Highway 1 wasn't quite the California we'd expected - driving rain and dark skies. The scariness of driving feet from a cliff edge in bad weather is more than made up for by the view when the skies clear, with amazing mountains and surf crashing against the shore.

First stop was Monterey, where we spent about 3 hours mesmerised by all the amazing creatures in the aquarium. Favourites were the casual sea otters, floating around on their backs posing for photos, and feeding time in the Kelp Forest was pretty special too. From Monterey we drive to Pacific Grove, which is in reality a small village but it's technically a city because any place with more than two houses is called a city in America. They don't seem to have any words for smaller settlements, which is either lack of imagination or sheer laziness, not sure which. Pacific Grove is very quaint and has views over Pebble Beach golf course. We didn't stop here, but Jon's fairly sure he could have gone round it under par no bother... We also stopped off in Carmel but Clint wasn't in so we pressed on.

Onwards to Big Sur, which isn't actually a town at all, just a few motels and restaurants lining the highway for a mile or so. We stop in a proper old fashioned motel here, which sounds more fun and romantic than it was in reality. A quick overnight stop here.

From Big Sur to Morro Bay. As we rounded a mountain bend in atrocious conditions a roadworker was stood out holding a 'stop' sign, looking very officious and serious despite the fact he was dressed head to toe in orange waterproofs and we were the only car on the road for a good 20 minutes in either direction. He made us sit at his temporary stop sign for a few minutes, staring at us unsmilingly until he finally turned it round to 'go'. He seemed very pleased with his work.

En route we stopped at Hearst Castle, the palace overlooking the sea built by William Randolph Hearst, newspaper magnate & founder of Hearst Corporation. An amazing place, truly spectacular yet quite vulgar at the same time, and proof positive that money can't buy taste.

When we arrived at Morro Bay we decided we'd upgrade from a motel and stayed at a hotel - the Ascot Suites. Never having been there I'm not sure if it was modelled on the suites at Ascot racecourse, but somehow I suspect the real Ascot would have slightly less chintz about the place. We were the only guests under 60 as far as we could tell. Morro Bay had a lovely seaside-town-out-of-season feel to it that made it quite pleasant wandering up and down the seafront without crowds of people around the place. We ate fresh fish overlooking the bay and felt quite content with the world.

Further down the coast came Solvang, 'Danish capital of America'. Everything in this place, literally everything, is modelled on Denmark. It's like a model town, except at full scale. We stayed in the Royal Copenhagen Inn, naturally, and took a stroll down Copenhagen Drive. How did they ever think up such evocative names? There are Danish names above every door, the Dannebro flying proudly from every flagpole and every road name is a Danish place. Except when we got inside the shops it was just all the same stuff you can find in every other small American town, except more expensive. Just to be difficult we had lunch in a Belgian cafe and dinner at a Japanese sushi restaurant.

When we'd had enough of the model village we went for a walk in the local park (Hans Christian Andersen Park). This is where we saw the mountain lion. We saw the sign at the entrance warning us what to do if we saw one, but we never for a second believed we actually would. Strolling along, minding our own business, Kath saw a movement on the grass bank and a big black cat was slinking through the undergrowth, thankfully in the opposite direction (take a look at the photos). This would be front page news back home given that we'd just seen the equivalent of the Beast of Bodmin, but nobody seems fussed over here. We left the park again fairly rapidly.

Next day we went to Santa Barbara, which was a lot more like the California Jon had been expecting, all sunshine and organic wheatgrass drinks, but very pleasant strolling along the shopping streets. We also stopped in Ventura, which was pleasant if unremarkable, before hitting Santa Monica.

L.A. is a very strange place, and it was a game of two halves forus, Brian. We spent 2 nights in a hostel in Santa Monica, doing things on the cheap, then we pretended we weren't unemployed layabouts with no means of income at all and spent 2 nights in a swanky West Hollywood hotel where all the famous types stay, pretending we were rock stars.

Santa Monica was classic California beach country. We saw all the lifeguard huts along the coast towards Malibu, and took a stroll along Venice Beach. Venice is a bit like Camden, if Camden was 90 degrees and had a beachfront. So not like Camden at all really, but it was full of the same types of people: crusties, hippies, street artists, tattooists, and lots of very random folk indeed. Basically it was a human zoo, which sounds like it might be a bad thing but it wasn't. It was ace.

There was a Kings Head British pub on the corner near the hostel, so we ventured in. Normally British pubs abroad are like theme pubs, Delboy's van outside and egg & chips on the menu, but this one wasn't. It was actually just like a British pub, complete with dartboard and slightly surly barmaid. Jon was so happy with this he could have cried. Kath was even happier that it was karaoke night.

Karaoke is normally a good reason not to go into a boozer, but they do it differently in America. Every singer treats it like their audition for the big time, and most are remarkably good. One bloke even moonwalked whilst singing Michael Jackson songs. There was general whooping at this. The one rubbish singer was Vinnie Jones, who was in there with all his team-mates still in football kit from an earlier match, singing Amy Winehouse's 'Rehab' amongst others. It was worth the entrance fee for that alone. We got a bit drunk & overexcited by the whole occasion and stayed until closing time, which is much later than a British pub on a Sunday night.

From the hostel we get a cab across town and tip up at the super exclusive Sunset Marquis Hotel, looking slightly scruffy and each carrying two rucksacks, one front and one back. The hotel staff are obviously trained to be very discreet, because none of them even looked us up and down as we marched in. Once they'd established that we were actually booked in we got to our palatial room and set about getting full value for money. Robes were worn, drinks drunk, bath products swiped (Kath again). We could quite happily not have left our room. When we did, we spent most of our time blagging our way into other hotels' bars then nursing one very expensive cocktail each for a very long time. We didn't see any famous people though, or if we did we didn't recognise them.

Hollywood itself was a bit of a let-down, small and a bit grubby, but overall L.A. was an amazing, unique experience. We packed a lot into a few short days, so time for a bit of R&R on the beach now.

Love to all. Stay in touch.

Jon and Kath xx