Vacation Day 1

We started out our first real day driving out of Grants Pass, OR. It was chilly, dark, but we were wide awake and ready to hit the road. We couldn't have been happier to cross over into California! There was a big "woohoo", and we had to stop and take a picture of the "welcome" sign.
The sunrise was beautiful as it rose over Mount Shasta. What a sight. Little did we know that along with the sun, would also follow temperatures in the 80's as we made our way south. We actually had to run the a/c after we passed through Stockton. We just laughed. What pansies we are!

Of course, we had to stop at Sonic for lunch. This is such a treat for us since we do not have a single Sonic in our part of the world. We savored our lunch....sad that a hamburger could bring such joy. We were surely surprised by the lower gas prices, and couldn't believe that gas was actually below $3 a gallon. This IS California afterall. We couldn't be happier though. Sure makes things better.

It was a stellar moment when we finally had 100 miles left until we reached Los Angeles. We spent the entire trip on I-5, which makes getting there mindless. As we got closer to the Los Angeles county line, traffic got more congested.

We got to Grapevine, CA and things got crazy. As we climbed through the mountains and made our way south, we really began to ask ourselves "who's idea was it to get to the LA area at rush hour?" The traffic was dense, and hair raising at times. It was sort of a trip down memory lane as we passed through Valencia and saw Magic Mountain. Brought back some fond memories of my childhood, and the days when my family lived in So. CA.

And then we reached Burbank, and traffic basically stopped. We had about 20 miles until we reached our motel. We were anxious. This was about 6pm. As we crawled through Burbank, we passed through North Hollywood, but there wasn't anything exciting to see. Bumper to bumper.

We passed the LA skyline and it was incredible. I don't care how many times I've seen it, it still amazes me. (I have the same reaction each time I see Mt. Ranier and it's in my backyard!) By this time, and hour and a half had gone by and we'd only gone about 5 miles. We were so anxious to just get out of the van and stretch......and still we crept south.

We finally reached our hotel at 8pm.....three hours after we reached Grapevine which was less than 30 miles away. I don't know how people can live here. We had traffic in Seattle, and we complain endlessly about it every day. But THIS was insane.

It was a memorable day, and a wonderful start to our vacation.