Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday, we drove down to Long Beach and went to see the Queen Mary Ocean Liner that is now docked in the harbour as a permanent hotel. There was
also a Russian Submarine docked next to her. The Queen Mary's maiden voyage from Southampton (UK) to New York was in 1936 and provided a weekly
express service between the two cities. The ship set a new speed record and became the champion of the North Atlantic.
Only 5 months later the Atlantic had its revenge when 12 people were injured during a very rough passage. The grand piano was sent crashing from
one side of the lounge to the other and, to avoid further injuries, the room was evacuated and locked with the grand piano still on the loose!
During World War 2, the ship was used as a troop transport ship. Sir Winston Churchill said that the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth Cruise Liners
had shortened the duration of the war by over a year.
After the war, the Queen Mary had to be completely refurbished and once again set sail as a luxury passenger ship. The Queen Mary played host to a
long and distinguished list of passengers. The Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, as well as the Duchess, were frequent guests. Winston
Churchill continued to sail aboard the Queen Mary during peacetime. The list of film stars who travelled aboard the ship is equally distinguished
and includes such names as Marlene Dietrich, Noel Coward, Bob Hope, Fred Astair, Clark Gable, and David Niven.
In 1967 the Queen Mary was retired from service after 1001 Atlantic crossings. It's "last great cruise" was to Long Beach and her final resting
place. She had been sold for $3.45 million.
There were several tours on offer to see the inside of the Queen Mary but they were too expensive for us - ranging from $15 to $30. So we had to
make do with 30 minutes free parking and dashed around to get photos. For an old bird, she's still very impressive!
Afterwards we drove along the front at Long Beach and stopped for lunch. We were looking for a library to send an email to our friends Lesley and
Rod who we visited last year in San Diego but who have moved house since then and we don't have their new address or phone number. But, no library!
So we continued south and then headed inland to find a spot for the night. We managed to find a Mexican bakery and Kirsten asked in Spanish about
bread rolls! We're starting to practice our language skills already!
On Tuesday, we found a library but couldn't do an update for our website because the computers were all blocked except for internet access. So we
sent an email to Lesley and Rod and then we drove to a campground in Valley Center where we stayed for the next 4 nights.
During the next few days, we caught up on our website which took a long time as there was so much to write. We also watched the video that we had
taken - we've virtually got the whole of the Universal Studios on there!
On Friday we left the campground and found out it was a Bank Holiday in the States so most government buildings were closed. We tried the post
office and the library before we realised!
We wanted to see if we had an email from Lesley and Rod as we knew we weren't that far away from them. But with all the libraries closed we decided
to drive to a Harrah´s Casino where we knew we could park up for the night.
We only spent 30 minutes inside the casino before the noise level drove us back out again! But we had enough time to get a free coffee and hot
chocolate!
At 7-20am on Saturday morning we got woken up by extremely loud 60s music blaring from the loud speakers on the casino car park. The music was
really, really bad!! Then there was a knock on the door and a security guard told us that we would have to move to another car park as there was
an "old car" show taking place this morning. He apologised for not telling us last night but that didn't really help!!
So Helen drove Winnie (whilst Kirsten stayed in bed) around the back of the casino and round to the other side where there was another car park
and where it was quiet! At least we managed to get some more sleep before driving back to the library to check our emails.
Lesley and Rod had sent us a load of emails giving us their address and telling us not to go to a campground as we could stay with them because
they were just down the road in Rancho Bernado!! Most of their emails had the title "Where are you?". So we finally phoned them and drove to their new appartment.
Lesley said we were only 10 minutes drive away but it took us 1 hour to get there!
They have a really nice appartment and we used their guest bedroom and bathroom - 5 star treatment!!
Helen and Lesley spent most of the time talking about all things English and how we miss English food, whilst Rod and Kirsten just shook their
heads, muttering disdainfully "the English!!"
Helen even managed to get an advent calender with Galaxy chocolate (a very English brand and her favourite chocolate - the best in the world of
course!!)
On Sunday, we drove down to Point Loma, San Diego which is a National Monument and we used our National Parks pass to get us all in for free.
The Lighthouse was celebrating its 150th anniversary and there were lots of people dressed up in period costumes. Unfortunately it was quite
foggy and when we went down to the tide pools, we could see a huge rolling wave of fog that looked like a giant Tsunami closing in on us. It
didn't take long and we were enveloped.
We sat on a bench and ate sandwiches and we all ended up with wet hair from the fog! Back home, Lesley made a great (English!!) stew and Rod got
a real fire going. What more can you ask!
