Day 16. Las Vegas, Nevada

We headed up to Palmdale to pick up Anthony. After a quick breakfast we were off to Las Vegas. We experienced some unusual weather in the form of a rainstorm in the desert. We even took some pictures of rainwater build-up in the desert. It is hard to tel but the photos that are taken through the car window, with the raindrops visible, shows the collected water. It may look like it is sand but that is the water. Unfortunately, this created some humidity in Vegas. We stayed at Circus Circus. We walked the strip and tried to avoid the abundant card snappers. We had dinner at the Irish Pub at New York, New York. It really was a bit too hot so we headed back to our hotel. Tony and Anthony left the tables a bit ahead. Tony played some roulette and Anthony dabbled in some blackjack and roulette. I, of course, refrained from any gambling. We were going to have breakfast at the hotel buffet in the morning but the long lines were a turn-off.

Day 15. Hollywood, Beverly Hills.

More hot weather today. We drove to Hollywood and drove around a bit--Sunset Drive, Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood Blvd, Rodeo Drive. We drove through Griffith Park and made our way up to the observatory. It turned out to be a great place to catch a view of the Hollywood sign. We walked around the observatory and got pictures of LA and the surrounding area from various angles. Tony captured a good shot of the smog. We headed back down and experienced the underbelly of LA as well as the privileged/excessive end. We stopped in at Greystone mansion. The grounds there are beautiful. Beverly Hills owns the mansion now and the interior is not open to the public. The mansion cost over $3 million to build and the owner died 4 months later--supposedly a murder-suicide. When the wife sold the mansion many years later, it went for less than it cost to build it. From the mansion we went to Hollywood Boulevard and checked out some of the stars on the walk. Many names were recognizable and some were not. There were several names on stars that caused us to wonder what the person could possibly have done that earned that privilege. We had lunch at neat place called U Wink. It was developed by the owner of Atari. There are screens at all tables and patrons can peruse the menu items and order for themselves. After orders are placed, it is time to play some strategy and trivia games on the screen. I wanted another drink and just punched in the order and had the drink within two minutes. The food was excellent. I ordered a turkey club and Tony had a teriyaki chicken sandwich. Both were excellent! We ate at around 2:30 and, although we have established a pattern of eating dinner at around 8pm, we did not want any dinner that night. We headed further north to be closer to Anthony and took a room in Santa Clarita/Valencia. Tomorrow we will pick up Anthony and start the next leg of the journey which should include Vegas, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion.

Day 14. San Diego Zoo and Venice Beach

We left La Jolla and headed down to the San Diego Zoo. We started with the overview bus tour to get our bearings and it is a good thing we did as it is a little confusing getting around. We enjoyed walking throughout the zoo and seeing the many animals and botanical specimens. It was very hot and that began to take its toll on us as the morning progressed. The zoo has several steep inclines and handling those in the heat finally became draining. They did have some people movers (escalators) that we made use of 2 times but we were on human power other than that. The photos include a panther, a mountain lion that actually posed for us, elephants, an anteater with baby on her back, wallaby, snoozing koalas, giraffes ( I won't tell the story behind the one pic), meerkats, condors, polar bears, a green tree snake, pandas, zebras, etc. We gave up on the zoo earlier than planned since we were wiped out from the heat, climbing, and walking. We traveled north and visited Venice Beach. Definitely an area that is accepting of all manner of expression. While Tony wanted to have dinner somewhere on the boardwalk, I was very uncomfortable with the cleanliness of the eateries. So, we figured we would drive further north and visit Pasadena and catch dinner there. Unfortunately, we hit traffic no matter which freeway we were on so we ended up grabbing fast food and eating in the hotel room. We ultimately ended up relieved that we did not go to a local restaurant. Tomorrow is supposed to be equally hot so we decided not to go to the Wildlife Park. We will head into LA instead before heading further north so we can hook up with Anthony again. He will be traveling with us for a few days.

The driving in California is absolutely crazy. Drivers weave wrecklessly in and out, they make 90 degree lane changes, cut other drivers off at will and without the benefit of directional signals, and the motorcycle drivers invent their own lanes. It is insane the way the motorcycles pass you in your own lane at ridiculously high speeds. Appparently, motorcycle drivers should not have to sit in traffic with the rest of the population.