Parents on vacation

My parents arrived in LA on Wednesday. They´re on a 5 weeks vacation to travel across the continent to Florida with me. My big job that day was to change rental cars and get a larger SUV. Kinda exiting, because I had a lot of luggage in the car, for instance several boxes with CDs. And when you use a travel agent you never know which rental agent they will use. But after some back and forth I got a car from National, and they have the same rental station as Alamo! So now we have an awesome Toyota 4runner with a golden color. YEY!

The LAX pick up went fine without any problems and we headed towards Palm Springs. My parents had a really nice journey from Europe hadn´t slept anything for more than 24 hours. I can imagine it was nice to get away from the snowy mayhem in Trøndelag, Norway. The ride to Palm Springs went in the speed of a drunk snail through LA´s much talked about rush traffic. So we didn´t get there until it was pitch dark. So we were really excited about waking up the next morning to have a look around. I´ve been to Palm Desert before, so I know how that´s like. But my parents have never experienced desert before. We stayed at a very nice Travelodge in the inner corner of the town at the foot of the mountain. The desert mountains in that area are very beautiful. We drove up the mountain from Palm Desert to reach some nice vista points. Then we got some water and wine at a local Target and went to Desert Hot Springs and ate left overs from the pizza dinner from the night before. We chose the longer way to Palmdale, via Yucca Valley and the Mojave desert. I think it´s fun to drive through the desert plains on smaller roads instead of just following the freeways. Palmdale was a very good starting point for the journey next day to Death Valley and further to Las Vegas. In Palmdale we had dinner for 13 dollars all in all at Taco Bell - cheapest so far! And with 1,5 liters of good Californian red wine from Target for 9 bucks, you can´t complain! So it´s definitely possible live on low-budget as a tourist in the USA!