Day 25 - Acton, California KOA

Today, we woke up and at some point during the early morning we had some Internet service as a whole mess of cryptic half messages came through on my phone. Due to the forest fire there is no Internet here and due to the canyon, there is no phone service. DH put CNN on with satellite XM radio. That is when we heard that a passenger train crashed into a station but we didn't know where? So I started searching through the news alerts I had received and found out it was in NJ however we still didn't where? CNN was speculating as to how it happened? If the officials knew they weren't saying? With the recent terrorism, there was that speculation too.

We went to downtown Acton as I wanted to get Warner Brothers Studio Tour Tickets and I needed Internet to get them. So once I had 3G phone service I was able to get tickets, however we had to go somewhere to print them. We went to FEDEX and was able to print them out.

From there we went to Santa Monica Pier to get tickets for one of those bus service tours that you can hop off and on with. We bought 48 hour tickets as they were cheaper. MIL only bought a one day pass as she plans on staying at the motorhome tomorrow so she can rest up for Saturday's tour. Of course we drove down this big hill to park on the pier, only to find out we had to walk up it to get the bus. Slow and steady we all walked up the hill. We waited about 20 minutes for the double decker bus to arrive. We all climbed to the top and there were people with ear phones plugged into a a unit that gave the tour and of course we didn't get them. The next stop I went down the stairs and got three pairs. We were on the green line which ran from the Santa Monica Pier along the coast to the Marina Del Rey and Fisherman's Village. The original plan was just to ride the bus on its loop, but since it terminated we were forced to get off. As a result DH used his phone to look up some restaurants with seafood. The one which sounded good was Whiskey Reds. Today is our official Wedding Anniversary so this lunch was in celebration of it. MIL had a salmon cake sandwich with fries, DH had an Ahi Tuna Salad and I had a lobster roll with fries. Suitably stuffed we were. I looked at my phone and it was 2:26 and I said we needed to rush to the bus as it would be there at 2:30. Otherwise we would have to wait another 1/2 hour. DH told me to go ahead so I walked my normal pace and made it to the bus. The driver was eating a snack bag of chips and I said there were two more coming, could he wait? He nodded and I looked to see where DH and MIL were and they weren't far. DH and I climbed to the top of the double decker bus but MIL stayed below in the AC. Of course I couldn't find my ear phones so I shared with DH. We found out that CSI Miami was filmed in Venice Beach area which we thought was funny. And the TV show Revenge was filmed at Fisherman's village. Last time we were in California back in 2002, the Pacific Ocean was grayish looking as it was foggy. This time we could actually see that it was a different color than the Atlantic Ocean. It didn't appear as turbulent as the Atlantic. Almost more lake like with the occasional wave. The beaches were extremely wide too.
DH and I decided to get off the bus back at the pier and call it a day.

We got a taste of LA traffic on the way home. Since we had three passengers we were able to ride in the carpool lane. Going it was cool to be able to whiz by all of the bumper to bumper traffic. Going back to the motorhome we were able to go a little faster than the bumper to bumper traffic in the regular lanes. The traffic was similar to a highway in Philadelphia. It bogs down for no apparent reason and then flows freely then bogs down again. What was crazy is the motorcycle riders would drive up between the carpool lane and the regular left lane. I just said we needed a CHiP (California Highway Patrol) to stop this behavior when a CHiP came up the same way.
The funny thing was a motorcyclist was riding his motorcycle behind the CHiP, unknown to the CHiP, which we thought was funny.

When we got back DH said we would drive up one of the roads near by to watch the sunset from the top of the ridge but I was too tired and took a nap. Woke up at 8:15 PM to Die Another Day on the TV.