Driving Through Los Angeles | Grand Trip Out West

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Most of the time, we really enjoyed our trip out west. We made lots of great memories and saw so many places we'd never been to before. (At least, that Sarah and I had never been to before - our parents had seen some places, when they lived in CA when Daddy was in the Navy.)

But the day we drove through Los Angeles was one of the not-so-good days. Not good at all.

Here's why:


The traffic. It was awful, even on a Saturday.

(Notice how they can change the population number.)



The Goodyear Blimp!

LA skyline



One of the things that was tops on Sarah's and my "I can't wait to see that!" list was the historic Santa Monica Pier. Those of you who have followed this blog for a while or who follow me on Pinterest know I have a bit of a fascination with this place. Well, somehow we didn't realize just how crowded it would be on a Saturday in June. And we were driving a Suburban pulling a 28-foot camper. There's not a lot of room for traffic in Santa Monica, a beach town that's a suburb on the west side of LA. And certainly no room for a big SUV and a travel trailer to park anywhere. So we drove as far as the sign...



And all we could see was the top of the Ferris wheel...



And the top of the roller coaster...

And then it was gone.   So we were supposed to take a right at the pier and that road would take us up to Highway 1, where we could drive up the coast through Malibu and all that... Well, the GPS went crazy and next thing you know, we were heading back behind us, toward LA, and back on to Highway 101... No beach highway. Just traffic. Lots and lots and lots of traffic. And four very tired and disappointed and hungry and disgruntled people. It wasn't a happy drive.

We DID, however, see the beginning of Interstate 10! (It runs through the Mississippi coast.)







We also saw the four-door version of the car Hunter Hayes drives. (His is a two-door Range Rover Evoque.)



This girl had it goin' on, y'all. Old Jeep, long hair, aviator sunglasses, straw fedora...

She just looked like California.

Ouch.

Thankfully, once we finally got to Port Hueneme, we saw this sunset.

And that made our awful day a little bit better.

Lesson learned: don't drive through LA. With a camper. In Saturday traffic. In the middle of summer.

Needless to say, one day, when Sarah and I are married, we and our husbands are going to go back to the Pier.

In a small car.

On a weekday morning.

In the middle of winter.

For the love of...well...not LA,

Rebekah