The plan:

• Fly in to Charlotte NC to visit and stay with the some good friends for a few days.
• Fly up to Chicago for 3 days
• Catch the train from Chicago to Los Angeles !!!
• Stay in LA for a couple of days
• Drive up to San Francisco via Highway 1 and stop a couple of times en route
• Spend a couple of days in San Francisco
• Fly back home to Germany

And that is exactly what happened. No problems at all. Finding hotels en route was no issue. I really like using http://www.booking.com

Nice short flight from Charlotte to Chicago as done many times in the past. Getting the car hire from Hertz and off into town to find the hotel. No problems there, I seem to know my way round town pretty well.

I did like their welcome in return to my checking in on FourSquare. In addition to the complementary breakfast vouchers that is…

Walking round Chicago… I must say, I have not seen that before. Not just 1, but 2 tickets.

And then one of the highlight of the whole trip. The train ride from Chicago to LA on the Southwest Chief.

Quite a few stops on route with an ever changing scenery. Next time on a similar trip I think would stop once or twice en route and catch the same train the following day.

It is however a very comfortable way to travel.

Arrived in LA after a delightful 45 hours on the train from Chicago. It did not take long to get our hire car t the station.

Excellent weather to cruise up Highway 1. In fact we never had the top down for the whole trip.

Made it to Malibu and then Santa Barbara for lunch, the rest of the day and night.

Fleet Week in San Francisco

How lucky can one be. The whole weekend was full of shows and activities. Here are the Blue Angels at their best:

Some well known views. Needs to be done though (not the first time for me)

The view over San Francisco from the Tween Peeks.