Day 17

Depart: Anaheim, CA, 8:45 am, Sunny, 62 degrees

We left Anaheim a little late this morning and headed into Los Angeles. Los Angeles is disgusting. Take a look at the picture to the left, it's so smogy you can barely see the skyline. We hit bumper to bumper traffic on a saturday morning at 9am. Why? 5 lanes went to one all of a sudden, and no one was directing traffic. We tried hard to stay out of bad areas in LA. We decided that if we remembered the name of a city, street, or place from a rap song that we would stay away from it (Ex: Inglewood, Compton, etc).

Then we went to Hollywood. When you see the picture to the right, you think we were in an area where movies are made and stars hang around right? Wrong...they don't even make movies in Hollywood anymore, they film them in Burbank and the San Fernando Valley. To see this sign we had to go up some back road to find it. Hollywood has dilapidated and appears to have been taken over by bums. I'm unsure how they could have let such a classic area turn to such ruins. We saw the corner of Hollywood and Vine too...but i'm not sure whats supposed to be there, we didn't see anything (besides some bums).

After leaving Hollywood, we went to the La Brea tar pits. It was pretty cool, but luckily we got a student discount and didn't have to pay the full price. It is worth seeing just for the exciting cartoon they show you in the museum. Click here to see more pictures.

We left La Brea and went down the end of historic Route 66 to the Santa Monica pier. On the way we passed through Beverly Hills and Brentwood (where OJ lived). One wierd thing about LA is that ghetto tranistions to super-rich area seamlessly. It's wierd how close the super rich live to the super poor. At Santa Monica we got to see lots of bums sleeping, painting, and fighting with each other. Someone really needs to crack down on the bum situation, its quite disgusting. Click here to see more pictures.

We said goodbye to bum's paradise (LA), and headed up the scenic Pacific Coastal Highway. The highway runs right along the Pacific Ocean, and is really neat. We passed through Malibu and Santa Barbara. Click here to see more pictures.

We stopped for the night in Pismo Beach, CA. It sounded familiar, and I think we vaguely remember there being an oil spill or something here. Here is a picture of the sunset...so we saw the sunrise on the Atlantic on Day 2, and the sunset on the Pacific on Day 17. This beach was cool because they also allow you to drive on the beach.

At the motel we met a kitty that Kelly named Henrietta. It was a cute kitten that kept jumping in our car, and tryed to follow us in our hotel room too. She was friendly and let us pet her. Kelly had to be dragged away from her.

Arrive: Pismo Beach, CA, 5:30 pm, Partly Cloudy, 65 degrees.