Evan and Jodi’s trip – LA
Previously posted on September 23 at: http://spaces.msn.com/members/evandodds/Blog/cns!1phaOgcvNsBxzvBN9Zpx1vbQ!201.entry
Our first few days of the trip:
- Fly SEA->LAS, Get rental car (informed that they bill for rental days lost if anything happens to the car… ouch! let’s hope nothing happens or that’ll be a hassle!)
- Drive from Las Vegas to Colton, CA (About 220 miles maybe? it sure took a looong time!)
- Visit Josh!
- We went to Huntington Beach, CA for dinner — probably a 1.5 hour drive from Colton (?), at least with the traffic we faced at that hour.
- Thursday J&I went into LA (another 1.5 hour drive) — about this time we made the realization that it’s about 1.5 hours between any two random points “in LA”. Ouch, I could not live in LA.
- We visited Hollywood and were suitably unimpressed. Lots of street characters and stuff to hassle us, and very little interesting stuff to see (or at least it seemed that way). Shame.
- We visited Beverly Hills. This was a bit nicer, driving Rodeo Dr was less glamourous than we had expected, but still lots of beautiful people, fancy cars, etc. Drove around Bel Air, lots of big houses I suppose. Drove around UCLA. Lots of students and college buildings. Went to see Everything is Illuminated at the AMC14. Parked in Beverly Hills and had some dinner. Drove back to Colton.
- Spent a little time on Friday morning with Josh, and then J&I headed 4.0 hours back to Las Vegas, stopping only for gas and for a little shopping trip at the Factory Mall in Primm, NV.
- Checked into our hotel here in Las Vegas. Whew. And now we’re back up to date
My main observations about LA and the surrounding area:
- It was really far to drive (and really complicated to try to plan trips by train — we tried) from anywhere to anywhere. Very much a car culture. Ick.
- It was very smoggy as we drove into the city on I-10. Presumably because the mountains trap in the smog and there’s not much rain to clear the air. Still, it looked dirty and disgusting.
- People in LA don’t care if you have a turn arrow *AND* you’re still in the intersection making your turn. When they feel it should be their turn to go, they’ll go and nearly hit you without even flinching.
- It’s really sunny
- I’d probably have been more impressed a few years ago, before I’d spent so much time visiting other large cities around the country and the world. As large cities go, in my (admittedly only one day and very limited experience with the whole of LA) opinion it was middle-of-the-pack.
