Goodbye Arizona - Hello Los Angeles!

Sad to have to leave our friends in Scottsdale ,,, we had such a great time there, with the Super Bowl Party as the grand finale - but, back to work now! It rained early this morning and on the drive out of the Greater Phoenix area. The drive to Los Angeles (or rather to Eagle Rock, one of many "suburbs" of L.A.), where we are currently staying, took us over 7 hours (410 mi/660 km). The traffic on I-10 and 210 was okay, but partly dense, though, no traffic jams or constructions. "Only" 14 lanes in the L.A. metro area, before we exited to Pasadena (photo below) - our first real stop on the way. We went for a quick walk there, but didn't recognize too much anymore from our last visit over ten years ago.

Before, we had quickly stopped at the Joshua Tree National Park's South Visitor Center (photo on right), then drove on to the Palm Springs area (with many, many windmills), through a couple of Indian reservations with huge casinos, and, always had the San Bernardino Mountains in view (pic below). These Southern Californian mountain rage was formed about 11 mio. years ago by tectonic activity along the San Andreas (Earthquake) Fault and was currently snow-covered. 

California isn't living up to its reputation so far ,,, only about 55 deg F./13 C and  some clouds! Arrived around 5 pm in Eagle Rock (west of Pasadena) and called it a day. Ate our left-overs from Super Bowl Party, warmed up in the microwave and grapefruit from our friends' tree, and started to plan out our next couple of days in L.A. - which is not an easy city to explore.