Today was another travel day. We thought it would be more scenic, but not a lot of opportunities to take pictures. We started the day in Sylmar, which meant we had to backtrack about 50 miles west to get back to the coast in Oxnard. It was a pretty ride, back through Reagan country, Simi Valley and Topanga Canyon. Went past the Reagan Library again, still couldn't make the turn in. Once we hit Oxnard, it was only a few miles until we ran into Point Mugu and the ocean again. The Pacific Coast Highway, CA-1 is beautiful in this area, and since it was a Saturday morning, there were bicycle and motorcycle riders everywhere. The first few turnouts looked promising, we took some nice pictures. Little did we know, that would be the end of pictures for the day.
      Once we got past the scenic areas near Point Mugu, the next heavily populated area was Malibu . You could tell there was a lot of money in that area. What you could see of the houses was beautiful, and of course if you couldn't see the house you might see the car. Plenty of Lamborghinis, Porsches, and Ferraris visible both parked and driving down the street. I guess if we had thought about it, we would have realized that in order to have Malibu beach houses, the Pacific Coast Highway must necessarily move inland so there is land between the road and the beach to build a house.   And since the goal of most Malibu beach house owners is to obscure the house from the street, there weren't many houses or much beach to see in Malibu.
     You could see the Malibu Pier, but it was Saturday morning, and it was a bright sunny day, so the locals were all headed out to the beach for the day. We decided then, that while we were able to see all the famous beaches, with the crowds and the parking, it wasn't likely we would get to take any pictures. But the beaches were beautiful. We went past Santa Monica Beach, and the famous Santa Monica Pier . If we thought the Malibu Pier was crowded, it was nothing compared to the Santa Monica Pier. We drove past Venice Beach, but the PCH turns inland just before, so you couldn't really see the beach.
     Then Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, then the PCH turned inland again as we went past Long Beach, then Seal Beach, and finally Huntington Beach. That's where the crowds and the traffic really started getting crazy. It turns out that Huntington Beach was holding the US Open Surfing Competition this weekend, and it looked like half the state of California was there. It was fun to people watch as we rode through. Riding through these areas of the PCH was more like a ride through A1A in Florida.
     Finally we passed through Newport Beach and Laguna Beach as the Pacific Coast Highway came to an end and we merged onto I-5 for the last 60 miles. The expectation was that the traffic of the PCH would be over, and we could cruise the rest of the way on I-5. Not true! It turned out the traffic on I-5 was even worse than the traffic on the PCH . It felt like a bad commute on I-4 back in Florida. Since we were only doing a couple of hundred miles today, and we weren't stopping anywhere significant along the way, we expected to get to San Diego in the early afternoon, possibly in time to get to Old Town San Diego to explore a little and to have dinner. Wrong!
     By the time we got to the hotel, it was close to 7:00, so we checked in and looked for a place close by for dinner. Nothing jumped out, but there was a TGI Fridays just down the street. Bruschetta Chicken Pasta looked good about now, and Chipotle Chicken Salad for Jody. To us, it's Orlando food, so kind of a taste of home cooking.
     Tomorrow is Sunday, and the plan is to sleep late in the morning. Probably do some laundry and visit Old Town San Diego in the afternoon. We decided to hold off seeing the San Diego Zoo until Monday to avoid the weekend crowds. We'll see how that works out.

235.4 miles today
12,960.4 miles total

11.033 gallons today
313.769 gallons total