Day 15 (July 18): Californiaaaa...Here We Coooomee...

Total Driving Distance: 159.2 miles (trip total: 4,248.5 miles)

States Traveled To: California

Main Activity: Exploring Santa Monica Beach

I woke up at the Acton/North Los Angeles KOA around 8 AM and really had to go to the bathroom. I ran over to the bathroom and read a sign on the door: BATHROOMS WILL BE OPEN SHORTLY - WE ARE FIXING A LEAK. Apparently the leak affected all the bathrooms at the KOA, so I ran back to the car and woke Liz up. "Let's get out of here. The bathrooms dont work." So Liz climbed up in the front seat, fell back asleep, and we drove to a nearby gas station that did have a bathroom.

Our first night in California had not been a particularly good one. The KOA did not have parking spaces next to the tent sites, so we had to sleep in the gravel parking lot next to the highway. The night was loud, hot, and the non-working bathrooms topped it off nicely. Fortunately, this was our only bad experience in California.

We decided to start our California adventure at the famous Santa Monica beach (the one with the pier and the ferris wheel). It was a Saturday and we were going to an LA beach, which meant one thing: horrible, horrible, LA traffic. According to most studies, LA has the worst traffic in America (Atlanta is #3 represent) and it is obviously notorious for it. I was told by a few people that I hadnt experienced LA until I sat in traffic for an hour. Thankfully, I got that experience out of the way on day one. It took us an hour to go about fifteen miles.

Here's the traffic at its best on the way to Santa Monica:

When we finally made it to Santa Monica, we had to drive along the beach to find decent parking ($7). But all that mattered was that we were there. The weather was a gorgeous 78 degrees and there were thousands of people on the beach. We decided the first thing we would do is walk a mile down the beach to the pier.

Along the way, we saw just about everything you think you would see on a California beach. Rollerbladers, surfers, street vendors, guys working out on the beach, homeless guys showering in the bathrooms, breakdancers, people gathered around old guys playing chess, and all the other kinds of people you would ever hope to see.

The pier itself was awesome. Underneath it was a small aquarium, surrounded by dozens of restaurants. On the pier itself was Pacific Park, the crazy amusement park with a ferris wheel, rollercoasters, and the like. There were people sculpting, painting, dancing, and doing all sorts of goofy stuff to make money. There was also a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, which I'd never seen before.

We didnt do any of the exciting things there are to do on the pier. We were mainly there to sightsee. On our way back to the beach, we sat, ate an entire box of Triscuits, and sipped on Coke, which Liz accidentally spilled all over the pier. So we ran back to the beach and found a great spot to lay down.

The water itself was too chilly to swim in, so I only dipped my feet in, then went to lie down in the sun next to Liz. She listened to music and tanned, while I read my book. We were lying next to a tent belonging to several guys teaching people how to surf. We learned a lot just listening to them.

After a couple hours of lying in the sun, we walked back to the car and ate sandwiches and chips 'n dip out of the cooler. We decided that we were too lazy to do anything else that day (we did have a few more days to spend in LA), so we drove to a KOA in Pomona, about 30 minutes east of LA. We had thought about camping at one of the state beaches that offer camping, such as Malibu, Huntington, or Orange County, but we decided not to change it up and stick to our always-reliable KOAs.

When we reached the KOA, we had plenty of time before we needed to sleep, so we checked online if there was anything exciting to do in Pomona. We found a drive-in theater nearby showing Harry Potter so we were set.

We had been craving a Dairy Queen Blizzard for quite sometime (they are hard to find out west), particularly the Blizzard-of-the-month with Girl Scout Cookies Tagalongs. The GPS told us that there was a Dairy Queen about three miles from our KOA, but when we arrived at where it was supposed to be, nothing was there. It was the second time the GPS had lied to us about a Dairy Queen (we had tried to find one in Vegas, but it led us to a bad part of town where we saw signs from a Dairy Queen that had probably been there over a decade ago).

Alas, we would have to wait on the Blizzards. We were now running late for the movie, so I had to settle for a McFlurry and Liz got a sandwich and iced green tea from Starbucks. We made it to the movie about ten minutes late.

The movie was awesome once again. I fell asleep in the middle of it (the back of our car was nice and comfy with our beds set up), just like I had the first time we saw it in Las Vegas. After the movie, we could have stayed and watched Terminator: Salvation showing on the same screen, but we, like everyone else there, decided not to stay (Ive seen it already...unfortunately).