Slept well, got up, bright and early, sunny day.

Humungous breakfast – for me Tree-hugger poached eggs… potatoes, green beans, spinach, red peppers, wild mushrooms, onions and eggs,

For Isaac – Downtown Eggs Benedict… potatoes, tomatoes, bacon, hollandaise, muffin and eggs.

Set us up for the day nicely, thank you.

 

Took a trip out to The Malibu Lumber Yard, in Malibu, along the lovely coast road, for a spot of shopping. We’d been in the car all of ten minutes,

‘Woops Mum…’ Isaac said, ‘Think I may have got us into a spot of bother…’ And then I heard the police sirens…

‘What did you do?’ I said, pulling the white-beast-of-bling onto the hard shoulder…

‘Threw a fag butt out the window…?’

‘Oh…’

I need to add, right here that, on allowing us to rent the car with only a scanned copy of my license, the nice Mr Avis said to us,

‘By law, you should have your driving documents with you at all times in the state of California, so keep your nose clean…’ Woops indeed…

Five minutes of grovelling apologies, slapped wrists and the warning – you may be allowed to litter your own streets back home, but here in California, it’s not acceptable – and we were on our way again.

‘Ha… That was exciting…’ Isaac said. I said nothing…

 

Arrived in Malibu Lumber Yard, a lovely chi-chi shopping mall built from reclaimed lumber and railway sleepers, full of to-die-for-stuff and we mooched around for a couple of hours. I bought some t-shirts, a pair of neon pink sandals and a Coachella-perfect pink straw hat and Isaac bought a Sweat-top, all from the uber-cool Kitson.

 

Headed back into LA, stopping for a beach walk under the dazzling light and clear blue California sky. (We had to get our feet wet in the Pacific. FFFreezing.)

 

Then on toThe Grove Farmer’s Market, another lovely, slightly more mainstream shopping mall. Bought some more of my fave boyfriend jeans in a dark wash from Lucky Brand and Isaac bought shades. Ate in the farmer’s market, in the sun, from a New-Orleans stall –Shrimp Gumbo and salad. Yum.

 

And finally, very excited, off to Coachella!!! First stop, wine and beer, essential festival supplies… We managed to locate the dodgiest Liquor Store on the West coast. I emerged into the sunlight from the depths of the dingy interior clutching my several heavy black bin-bags to find Isaac feeding cigarettes through the sunroof to a cartoon-perfect hobo who left us his calling card… ‘Investment fund manager’ and I kid you not… We made a fairly hasty getaway and hit the road. The Sat-nav (or Don’t-get-lost as it’s called here…) told us two hours. It took about four, mainly due to the heavy traffic heading out of LA, but it was a wonderful drive through stunning scenery up through the mountains and down into the desert.

Just Wow!

 

Coachella is a desert valley beyond Palm Springs, nearest town, Indio. The contrast between the wild and arrid scrub-land surrounding the freeway and the lush green of the tropical gardens and the manicured suburban streets is amazing. A true Oasis. We collected our tickets from the box office which we managed to find surprisingly easily and arrived at the car camping site around 6pm. We’d been amazed up till now how queueless it had all been, but things changed as we entered the holding field, along with a hundred thousand other punters. We turned up the sounds, broke into our bin-bagged supplies and drank warm Californian Rose from a Starbucks thermos cup becoming more and more chilled as we inched nearer and nearer to the entrance and the sun set on Coachella.

 

We parked up around 9pm, unhooked the seats from the back of the white-beast-of-bling, blew up our bed (which fitted perfectly, phew!) drank some more beers and wine and ate our first chilli-dog, which was as gross as it sounds (but we didn’t care,) We met our neighbours, a lovely bunch of young Aussies and Americans, lent out our cigarette-lighter-powered-bed-blower-upper and fell asleep, knackered, just this side of mid-night.

 

Tagged: California, Coachella, diary, Happy Times, Malibu, Road Trip