California

After the Grand Canyon, it was finally time to head into California. Somehow we managed to time it just right to hit rush hour in L.A. on a Friday afternoon, but we were still OK. Joe drove and I navigated. We took the long way around the city so we didn't have to go THROUGH the city. Then we were on Highway 101.
When you're still in the L.A. area, you can't see much ocean yet. We were trying to get as far away as we could, but 101 is still running mostly west at that point, so we were blinded by the sun. Besides we were exhausted. Suddenly a mini golf course loomed on the horizon, dominated by a ten foot tall Cinderella-like castle.
"Oooh!" Joe and I looked at each other. "Should we stop?"
We considered. Probably not, we decided. We should try to get a lot farther tonight.
We looked at each other again. "Well?"
"I think I'm taking this exit," Joe said.
"I think I saw a Motel 6 back there too," I said.
It took us a while to find mini golf again, and even longer to find the Motel 6 (there were only 5 rooms left when we got there!!!), but it was totally worth it. We relaxed, played mini golf and skee ball, ate sushi, and slept well in our barely adequate, leaky AC, Motel 6 room.
When we discovered that we had barely gotten a room here, we decided we should really reserve something ahead of time if we wanted to spend the next night near Monterey. So we started calling hotels from our AAA books.
Sold out, sold out, sold out, we have just one standard room left.
"Really? How much?"
"$225."
I nearly fainted. We were on the verge of deciding to wake up at 5 a.m. and drive straight through until San Francisco, when Joe discovered that Motel 6 kept a book of all their hotels in the room. We called up the Marina location (just outside of Monterey) and got one of THEIR last rooms.
Whew.
Tomorrow: Monterey, Big Sur, Crazy Driving