Day Forty-Seven: Cruising Down the California Coast

Happy Anniversary, Sarah & Erik!!
We were planning on sleeping later today, since it was only a three hour +/- drive to Los Angeles. The birds had a different plan. We woke up to a rooster set on snooze and a flock of birds in the tree above us. Let's just say they have pretty good aim. Unfortunately. We made breakfast and as we were cleaning up, we saw a squirrel carrying a pinecone. Now, the pinecone was the same size as the squirrel, so to see him carry it up the tree (and doing a flip) it was very impressive!! Luckily, it was only his footprints we saw in all the sand near the tent (we were worried...) After only taking 20 minutes to pack up (new record), we headed south to Los Angeles. We decided that we wanted to take the Pacific Coast Highway as much as we could, because we wanted to drive along the ocean. (Turns out 101 goes right along the ocean, too, just from a little higher up.) There were some spots that there was nothing going on, and then there was one spot where all the surfers were. We also saw what looked to be the Black Pearl, but six more ships came out of the fog, so we decided that it wasn't that! Hopefully we'll be able to see it in Disney! It was also interesting because there is a section of it where people in RV's can rent a spot and vacation right along the road. Doesn't do much when you're trying to take pictures, though.
We also passed a ton more farms today. There were handfuls of people at each one, picking and plucking. We saw the farm land and shipping plant for Fresh Express lettuce and a production plant for International Paper. Pretty neat. There was also a piece of land that was bright orange. We're not sure what they were growing, but it was interesting to see this block of orange in the middle of green. (Yesterday we passed Raisin City, California, home to Sun-Maid raisins. There was a sign along the side of the road.)
Once we got into the LA vicinity, the landscape was definitely not what we were expecting. We haven't actually driven through LA, but did drive through Pasadena. There are huge mountains out here, and the fog/smog is ridiculous. We just hope we'll be able to see everything tomorrow!! After driving around for a little, we decided to head to the campground to set up, and figure things out. (The lady at the front desk has family in Connecticut. We had a nice conversation about it...) We put the tent up and we were going to head out to see what is around here. We are right next to the Fairplex, which is where they hold the LA County Fair in September. We are also near a small airport and a raceway. The train also came by once, but it doesn't seem to bee overly loud here. We needed to get some things at the store, so we went to Walmart. Fanciest Walmart we've been to. We had been playing a game this afternoon, trying to see which cars drove by. The cars in the parking lot were high class. There were Mustangs, Mercedes, and Lexus-es up and down the parking lot. Definitely wouldn't expect that! We got our stuff and headed back to the campground for dinner. We are spending the night trying to figure out how to do the most in a short time. Hopefully we'll be successful! Then it's early to bed to start our day pretty early!!