We said goodbye to our time in Venice with one last stroll along the beach, packed up and thanks to Helen’s cousin; John we had a lift over to La Canada where her Aunt lives with husband Joe. So far it’s been a pretty easy ride for us so-called backpackers, but we’re pretty sure we’ll make up for this later on!

Jill and Joe live on the edge of the LA Forest, it’s a world apart from the metropolis that makes up downtown LA, Venice, Hollywood and so on. I think that’s partly why we’ve enjoyed staying here as much as we have because we’re not normally doing the tourist thing. So for the afternoon we just chilled out, got our bags sorted for the next trip ahead and did a little bit of planning. It’s around 10-15 degrees hotter where they live too so we were appreciative of the aircon and a nice cooling dip in the pool. We also had fun with our underwater Sony camera purchased in Thailand. We do feel like we’re on holiday right now! ha!

Later on we enjoyed a drive out to Pasadena via some rich homes and gardens, and a few scenic spots along the hill tops for good views over LA. We strolled around the streets of Pasadena which was built up just after the war and has since been modernised, it seems pretty upmarket with a more boutique-like feel to the place. We did enjoy a great Mexican meal at Mijares along with our first Margarita before heading back for an early night.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 processed in Lightroom 3)