The day started early. We woke up at 5:00 a.m. and Marci and Chuck drove us to DFW Airport at 5:30 a.m. There was a long line at the curb side check-in, but we got through it and into the airport in plenty of time. The flight was rough at the beginning, but smoothed out after the first hour. I don’t understand why so many people carry their luggage onto the plane and then try and store it in the over head bins. Just check it in. Are they afraid they are going to lose their luggage? Anyway, we arrived at LAX Airport at 9:00 a.m. PST. It was a three hour flight, but we lost two hours crossing two time zones.

It took forever to get our bags at baggage claim. Maybe those people who carry their luggage onto the plane have a good idea. We caught a shuttle from LAX to our hotel in Pasadena. The smog was pretty think over Los Angeles, but it was cool to see around the city with the Hollywood hills in the background. The city looks pretty trashy. There seemed to be graffiti all along the freeway. Jennifer refused to look forward and kept looking out the side because our driver kept swerving while he was messing with his cell phone.

We got to the hotel in one piece and got our hotel room. It’s on the first floor and has stairs walking down to where the bed is. So, it has a pretty tall ceiling, which makes the room feel a whole lot bigger. We checked in with our tour and received our tickets to the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl. We are sitting in section 23, row 31. It’s on the corner of one of the end zones. For the parade we are sitting in one of the grand stands right after the first turn of the parade.

We explored around downtown Pasadena and then went to a reception for the tour. We met some other Longhorn fans, some older ladies some of whom are faculty at the University of Texas’s Nursing School. It was nice visiting with them and they offered to give us a ride to the Longhorn Bash on Tuesday.

Today’s picture is a surprise we had when we opened up one of our luggage. Emily had stowed away! Actually, this was from last week. One day Emily fell asleep in one of the suitcases while taking a nap.