people we had never heard of, or who were now dead.
The most interesting tale was about a now deserted house with a large
pool where the Olympic star and Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller had lived
and swam. The house had later belonged to the Mamas and the Papas until
they had been sent packing for causing trouble, and a fire, at the property.
Following this dubious tour of the hottest property in LA we returned to
Anaheim, via a short lunch stop and after five and a half hours on the bus.
Worth the money for the comedy driver, but not a tour to be recommended.
Our last day in LA saw us return to a much less busy and much more chilled
Disneyland. The weather was glorious again and we ambled round the park,
finishing off the bits we had not seen and watching the parade again. Disney
is one of the few places where people will happily sit on the pavement for
hours in order to witness ten minutes of people walking past in costume. On
this occasion we filled our two-hour wait with playing Lord of the Rings Top
Trumps and adopting precocious children. The parade was great though.
Six days in LA was plenty of time and we had few regrets when we moved on
the day before New Year's Eve. In contrast to Christmas we do not tend to
make a big thing out of the passing of the year, either tagging along to
parents’ parties or just staying in with a Chinese takeaway. We were planning
to just do the latter during our American adventure, the former would have
been logistically challenging, and intended to stay in the van in the San Diego
area. However, we planned this in England before we had actually spent any
time in the van, and certainly before we had had an extended and mostly