We left Fallbrook and headed up to Los Angeles. Drove along Highway 1 again and went through some of the beach towns. Stopped in Laguna Beach for a little shopping and some Italian ice cream, then got on the freeway to begin our real LA experience. Actually, before we even got on the freeway, we were almost involved in a car accident. Some #@%$%@ pulling out of a shopping center almost broadsided us. He couldn't have been an inch away from the car. But apparently Missy's stunt driving was enough to prevent the accident. So, once we actually got on the famous freeway, we were amused to find a traffic jam at 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon.
We spent Monday discovering what it is like trying to get anything done in LA. We had several things we wanted to do since we were only going to be there for one day. So we had a nice little plan of how to get all these things accomplished - then we started actually driving. The traffic isn't horrible, but the city is just so big and spread out that it takes forever to get anywhere. We spent all of the morning just getting to downtown LA, checking e-mail and websiting at the library (the LA Central LIbrary is a palace among libraries, by the way) and getting back to Hollywood. We took a few photos, then headed back to the beach for some more shopping (once again, right at dusk, so we missed the good stuff - a major problem with traveling this time of year is the lack of daylight) and that's really all we got done Monday. We both decided we need a lot more time in this city because there are so many things to see.
Jenny's planner observations - Southern California was nothing like I expected. Because it's one of the areas that you tend to think of when you think of sprawl, I was surprised by how high-density it is. Especially LA itself and a lot of the new developments we saw around San Diego. So it's not necessarily low density that makes it sprawl, there's just a lot of it.
Missy's observations - I must come back as I did not get to see the art museum and the tar pits. Also, I think LA is ripe for gallery hopping. Must check out in the future. A great place!