Day 1 - DC to California

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Today is day one of my trip. I woke up this morning, after hitting snooze a couple of times, at 6:20 a.m eastern time. My flight left Dulles airport at 8:50 this morning and arrived at LAX at 11:00 a.m. WOW! What a crazy mess LAX is! Seems like an insanely busy airport!

I can tell you that within the first 5 minutes of arriving in LA, I decided that it's not the town for me. However....I'm kind of digging San Juan Capistrano, which is about an hour south of LA.

After waiting at the airport for about 30 minutes for my ride to arrive, a guy from the dealership named Nate picked me up. I think he's about 26 years old, seems kind of surferish and is really funny. We had a good trip to the dealership, which I was thankful for because that could have been an awkward ride...

Anyhoo, I arrived at the dealership around 12:30 and saw my baby! Who I initially named Stevie, but I think I have re-named her Alice. I took her for a spin to make sure everything was kosher and then went back to the dealer to sign the 400 pieces of paperwork.

I'm sure you all have heard of the massive power outage in San Diego....well the dealership is about and hour north of San Diego. While I was waiting for the finance dude, the power went out...again. So then......I had to get in my jeep and drive back up towards LA to go sign the paperwork. All in all, I really wasn't that aggitated because #1 - it's not the dealer's fault, #2 - I just got to see more of the LA area and #3 - which is most important of all - I got to drive my Jeep!!

Also, FYI - people in LA drive absolutely insane!

Originally, my plan was to arrive in LA, go to the dealer really quick and pick up my Jeep (I don't know why I thought this would be a quick process) and then drive down to San Diego to dip my toe in the ocean. Welp....that didn't happen. The power outage backed up the traffic so bad that it would have taken me FOREVER to get there, and after waking up early, sitting on a plane for 5 hours, and then the whole dealership mishap, I decided to drive on to Palm Desert, which is where I am now. It's now 9:15 pacific time (so 12:15 east coast time) and I'm starting to wear down a bit.

The road to get here, which was 74, was awesome. Super curvy, super high up on the mountains, and really fun. I definitely had to slow down quite a bit, even with people riding my tail, for fear of over accelerating and driving myself off the mountain. I'm not used to that sort of thing since I'm Virginian 😊. However, I would definitely suggest that if you are ever out in the LA area and plan to drive to Palm Desert, TAKE 74! It's pretty fun. Here's a youtube video of the crazy road:

I am sitting in my hotel room, drinking some wine, and pretty much ready to go to sleep. I have a long day of driving tomorrow...and the next day....and the next day.....and so on and so on and so on!!

Ciao for now!!

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