Los Angeles Day 1...

Well, no sleep for the excited, we were up at 0530...  went to the comp breakfast, which was very good, then headed on down to the San Jose Airport-  We did a circle jerk twice around the facility trying to figure out how to return the stupid rental car- We did figure it out finally, and then had a long wait for the plane, which took off 5 minutes early...  what is it with planes out here that take off early!!!

The airport sits in a valley, and we basically flew down the coastline over what for the large part was not settled land-  I had forgotten that it was still in a pristine state. 

We got into LAX with no problems, after a 55 minute flight- 

We came in through the city side, so we had some nice views of LA-  no smog today, a little bit overcast, temp about 65 when we landed. 

We took a shuttle over to the main American terminal, and once again, the bag was waiting for us as we arrived-  2 for 2! 

We went outside and had to wait a while for a shuttle-  got it, and of course, being LAX, the facility was like 3 miles away-  When we got there there was 100 people on line-  What a bad set up.  To their credit, it only took about 15 minutes, but then the problem was they were actually running out of cars to lease.  They were letting people take Mercedes, whatever they had.   I held out for what I asked for, and got a Chevy HHR  little sort of van.  Cute little car.

Then, we headed out for the Nixon Library, we just did a drive by- got a pin, and a baseball, of all things....  I was hungary, so we didn't fool with actually spending a lot of time there, we'll do that another time.

By now, the travelling was catching up, so we just headed for the hotel, which is very nice-  its a Courtyard in Hacienda Heights.  

Here's the view out the front of the hotel-  Think this may be Mt Wilson, not sure.

Tomorrow, not sure what we will do.  Plans as of now are to head over to the Reagan Library, then over to Ventura, for Channel Islands NP, then back through the Santa Monica Mountains NP.