Cross-Country Vacation
Day 0: Arriving in Los Angeles
Saturday, September 2, 2006
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Early in 2006 I hatched a vacation plan. My Chevy Malibu was going to be 9 years old and I had maxed out my GM card rebate ($3500) so I was planning on buying a new vehicle sometime soon. I mentioned this to my brother Doug and he asked me how much I wanted for it, so I got the idea to drive it across country from LA back to Grand Rapids, Michigan around Labor Day to sell it to him.
I had made the trip from Chicago by myself over 3 days when I originally moved to California in 1996. I did not want to just repeat that long drive alone again, so I convinced my sisters Cheryl and Dawn to take a couple of weeks off and fly out to LA to ride back with me.
The two of them and my step-mom Mary had come out for a couple of weeks back in 2000 and we toured San Diego, Palm Springs, The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and points in between, and had a great time.
Well, Dawn ended up getting married over Memorial Day weekend 2006 and of course wanted her new hubbie George to come along, and my Malibu had a fairly large back seat so I figured why not make it snug and invite Mary again too.
So I booked them tickets for the two weeks after Labor Day and starting planning out a rough itinerary. A couple of days in Yellowstone were an absolute must, and the Black Hill and Mount Rushmore would be right on the way back from there. Utah was going to be on the way to Yellowstone so we started looking at the national parks there: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Capital Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches, and some other attractions. Since Grand Teton was right beside Yellowstone, we might as well do that, too. The two weeks quickly filled up.
Cheryl was the AAA guru and made some reservations for around Zion for the first weekend and for inside Grand Teton and Yellowstone the second weekend. We decided we would wing it for the weekdays in between. Cheryl was going to be flying from Harrisburg while the other three were coming from Saginaw/Bay City/Midland in Michigan. We needed to drop Cheryl off at O’Hare in Chicago by the morning of Saturday, September 16, so she could fly back to Harrisburg while the rest of us completed the drive.
Dawn, George and Mary got into LAX a little before noon on Saturday, September 2. I picked them up in my new Chevy Impala. I had bought it on July 5 during GM’s 6-year, 0% financing incentive offer.
Cheryl was due to arrive later that afternoon, so the four of us took a quick tour of LA. We drove down Hollywood Blvd and past Mann’s Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame and then up to the Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park. All of us but George had been to these attractions before on the 2000 trip. I did not realize it but the observatory was closed for restoration, but we still got a nice view and a look at the Hollywood sign.
After picking Cheryl up we drove out to Santa Monica to see the wide, sandy beach and then went up the PCH a little ways. I took them up and over the Santa Monica Mountains to a place called Paramount Ranch, where a lot of TV and movie location filming has taken place over the years.
Those guys were getting tired and hungry after a long day of flying, so we got some dinner at Buca di Beppos in Thousand Oaks, stopped by my office in Camarillo for a quick tour, and then headed home to my townhouse in Oxnard. I had bought the place in 2003, so none of my family had ever visited or seen it before. I had just finished some painting and other projects and purchased a lot of new furniture in the previous weeks to make the place presentable and their stay comfortable.
Day 0 Summary:
Start: Los Angeles International Airport
End: Oxnard, CA
Route: Local Roads, I-10, Pacific Coast Highway (CA-1), US-101
Approximate Driving Distance:
This Day: 95 miles
Total: 95 miles
Next: Day 1: Utah Bound