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I never realized that it was hard to get out of Vegas.
We woke up at a decent (i.e., not early) hour, and trudged back to the car which was thankfully there and in one piece. You park it and don't see it for a day in Vegas, you start to think worst case scenario. But all was well! There was a entrance to I-15 near our hotel, but on the wrong side of the street. So rather than go through the main traffic, we figured we'd take a shortcut and go the back way. Driving south, we could see I-15 right next to us, and yet could not get on! We keep going, and going... Finally I saw a Travel Center in the distance with a burger king and about 3 million semi's. If they're there, then the highway has to be close! We got a bite for breakfast right at the last minute before they swapped to lunch, and then it was time to head into that big state on the west, California.
It was windy. Now when I say windy, realize that the past 2 driving days have been windy. So for me to note new windy, we're talking real windy. (More on that later.) Off in the distance we saw some rain, and also something else. A dust storm! We went through 2 of these, taking visibility waaay down, and generally making us laugh since the interesting weather happens on our 'short' driving days. Better than on the long ones I suppose. But we just can't win sometimes! Despite all that though, we made pretty good time across the wide expanse of ugly desert.
Getting closer to LA, we at least got some mountains, which blocked a little of the wind, though we saw some powerlines bouncing around like they were starring in one of our favorite cartoons, Rejected. We gave a call to Meg's mom, Carolyn, to give her warning we were getting closer, and she gave us some directions to help avoid the LA traffic. We lucked out in that department unwittingly apparently, since we went through some sections that soon after would become very slow places to go. No problem for us though!
We made it to Thousand Oaks, and after a tour of the home, Carolyn took us on a tour of the local area. Quite a pretty town! After this we were going to go into LA to see some of the tourist items, but the wind had done it's damage. Power was out for most of the city, and traffic was gridlocked. Drats. But if you're going to have a reason why you didn't see the Chinese theater or the Hollywood sign, how about citywide power outtages? Works for me.
Carolyn helped us with some maps of California and also plenty of local knowledge of the area, pointing out a few things we might want to see. Handy to have an expert on hand! We debated on retrying the LA trip on the following morning, but decided it would just take to long, and determined that we would have to come back someday. Who wouldn't want to??
And let me officially thank Carolyn and Rod for letting us stay at thier (very) nice home. We really appreciated it!! (And the laundry facilities and dinner and the rest.) :)
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