June 8, 1999 Tuesday

7:00 a.m.
Arrived in Las Vegas and saw several new casinos like New York New York and others still in progress.

8:00 a.m.
Entered the state of California. Highway 15 from state line has been marred and littered with skid marks, blown tires and car parts. We saw part of Death Valley...otherwise mostly desert and craggy mountains. Just before Baker we saw several squad cars on the shoulder, a cop holding a rifle and an airplane and a helicopter running search patterns in the desert. Breakfast for $2.99 at Bun Boy, maybe we should try it!

12:30 p.m.
Just outside San Bernadino, we can see the smog oozing up from the LA basin. Meanwhile we're stuck in traffic from road construction, (30 min so far). I just spotted an Olive Garden, and most of the shopping looks the same as Denver or KC. It still looks like desert, with highway laid down and buildings springing up from the sand and sage. For fast food I see In-N-Out Burger or Bun Boy. Shortly after 1:00 we're motoring once again. Traffic isn't too heavy yet, we hope theres no 12:00 rush hour (as its really only 11:00 here and we're still a ways from our Pamona KOA). We plan to park the motorhome and return to the Ontario Mills Shopping Center.
We are entering the San Bernadino National Forest and LA is 66 miles!

2:30 p.m.
Arrived in Pamona, found a different campground than the one we originally planned. Sally, the manager, fixed us up with a nice lot near the pool at the front of the park. We have a drive, a patio and space for the motorhome with full hook-ups all for just $18 a night.
After the MH was parked and hooked up we left for some shopping at the Montclaire Mall. It was your basic Anywhere, USA mall, but we called Adrienne from there. Devin bought some shirts and Glen and I bought snacks.
We packed into the car and drove into downtown LA, onto Sunset Boulevard and the Sunset Strip, Hollywood and Beverly Hills, over to Santa Monica Beach up Hwy 1 to Malibu and finally up through the Santa Monica Mts. trying to find the Mulholland Hwy for a scenic overlook of LA. We were all hungry and tired by this time, 9:30 p.m. and sleep-deprived, so we headed to the campground via I-10, a long drive until we jumped into the carpool lane. We ended day one in LA with grilled hot dogs on our patio. We collectively agreed to spend 3 nights here instead of 2, as we each had so many places we wanted to visit. Tomorrow, first priority is to visit my old stomping grounds!