Las Vegas to Anaheim (260 miles about 4 hours 30 minutes)

It was a later start than we had planned to travel from Las Vegas to Anaheim due to the Grand Canyon trip but we had no detours planned.
We were about videoed out and we took no photos on the journey. We travelled uneventfully and reached Anaheim without problem. The sat-nav got us to our hotel, The Clarion, and we found it to be one of the more luxurious that we had been in. We arrived at about 7.00pm and were resolved to take things pretty easy. We ate in the hotel, an American/Mexican restaurant, and it was adequate rather than better. We retired quite early and decided to tackle a trip out to the coast the following day.
Anaheim has little to recommend it to us, it is just the inland Disney resort, consequently it is packed with families and that is not our scene. We set off from the hotel with breakfast in mind – I was thinking pancakes and we remembered an Ihop restaurant on the way in the previous day. We found it without problem but the queue was right out of the door and across the pavement. It was a ho-brainer that we gave it a miss and walked on. There was a small parade of shops where we found a doughnut shop and bought a couple which we washed down with hot chocolate, it was getting to be our basic breakfast.
When we returned to the hotel we called a basketball friend, Jeff Bonds, who lives in LA. We knew that he was flying out the following day, to take up a job with a Spanish team so we couldn’t expect him to have time to visit with us but we wanted to touch base with him. Having left a message on his phone we were pleased that he phoned back and we had a pleasant chat. We had been thinking of going to Long Beach but he suggested the nearer Huntington Beach.
We spoke to the concierge and he echoed Jeff’s view so we navigated ourselves to Huntington Beach where we parked in the town before walking out to sea along the pier. From the pier we were able to watch first the beach volleyball, which was impressive, and then later people were surfing, which was equally excellent to watch. At the end of the pier there was a Chinese restaurant named Ruby’s, it was clearly popular, and while we watched people fishing off the end of the structure there were regular calls for the waiting diners as tables became available.
We noticed a regular flow of bicycle taxis up and down the pier; each one was pedaled by a student with a notice stating; “Driver works for tips only” I will write about the tipping culture later but it was everywhere.
We finally caught up with the pancakes by eating lunch in the Ihop on Huntington Beach high street. To be honest it was another time when for lunch we could have shared one portion but they were tasty.
We tried to travel down the coast to the Newport Beach area which we had been told was really worth the ride. Unfortunately it was Friday afternoon and everywhere was busy to the point that there was nowhere to park and we were in lines of traffic all the way. We turned off the coast road and made our way back to the hotel.
By the time we parked at the hotel we were not keen to go out in the car again so while Julia went up to the room I scouted the area. All the local restaurants seemed to be steak houses and throughout our trip we seemed to have eaten more than our share of cattle. Ironically we ended up at a cattle drive themed restaurant but we ate well and thoroughly enjoyed the service.