California Vaca Part 4: Wrapping it Up, Last 2 Days

I think I've drug this on long enough, so here is the last of our vacation recaps.

By the last 2 days we were running out of steam and while there were still several things on our list of places to see, we decided to take it easy and relax a little. So, Friday we headed up pacific coast highway to Malibu. This was a really pretty drive and Malibu was beautiful. It took a little while to get there, but I think it was worth it. We spent several hours on the beach and then stopped at Pepperdine University on the way back. Derek said he would move out there in a heartbeat if he could work at Pepperdine. It is the most beautiful college either of us has seen. After touring around the campus we headed back down the shoreline, stopped for dinner in Marina del Ray and then drove around downtown and checked out USC because we figured we should actually go see downtown LA while we were there. Here are pictures from the day.

Malibu Beach

Derek loved boogie boarding - the boogie board was broken by the end of the trip!

We didn't get any good pictures of downtown, but afterward we went back to the hotel, got room service dessert and called it a night. 

Saturday was the much anticipated "Carmageddon"! A section of one of the freeways was closed for construction and all over the news there was talk about how it was going to be the worst traffic ever and how driving would be a nightmare. So we decided to spend as much of the day poolside at the hotel as possible. We checked out at 3 and decided to head down to Rancho Palos Verdes, a little peninsula that was just south of where we were staying and away from the major freeways. There was more beautiful scenery and lots of photo ops.

After looking at pretty houses and beautiful cliffs overlooking the ocean we decided to head north towards the airport and surprisingly traffic was better than it had been the rest of the time we were there. Apparently all of the scare tactics worked and everyone stayed off the roads. So we did a little shopping and headed to In N Out one last time before we left. We got to the airport with time to spare, and Derek even saw an NBA / Team USA basketball player at the airport, who we assumed was leaving the ESPY's. We took a red eye flight back to Cincinnati, on a plane whose air conditional didn't work and neither of us slept. Even so, we had an amazing time. It was an unbelievable trip and I feel so blessed that we were able to go.