day 1: to cali

Sitka to Seattle to Portland to to LAX = 10.5 hours.

We arrived in the airport @ 11 pm. Our plan was to crash in the airport until the morning to save one night’s worth of hotel. We had to get our bags which were outside of security and outside of security there were no benches, chairs or even carpets to lay on. While Leah stood among the 200 other passengers waiting for our bags, hoping they’d get to us before a suspicious bum snagged them, I began calling hotels from the “Hotel Board." Most of them had no vacancy. But just as I was beginning to feel homeless, I spotted the “LA Adventurer Backpacker’s Paradise.” Below the title it read:

FREE SHUTTLE
FREE BREAKFAST
FREE HAPPY HOUR
FREE T-SHIRT
FREE CAKE

-With all THAT free stuff, we just had to stay there. I called and after booking us for the night, a shuttle was sent.

After gathering our belongings, we began walking outside with the honking cars, buses, shuttles, taxis and travelers with excessive baggage. We walked, and walked and walked and waited and waited and waited. Then we saw our big “FREE” bus and hopped aboard. Let me remind you that buses are not built for 80 MPH on the freeway. The thing clanked so loud, that we didn’t think it’d get to our hostel in one piece.
On the way there, we saw “Adult Video Booths.” Now, there is only ONE clear reason for such a thing… Nice neighborhood...
Anyway, the hostel was nice and cheap and took us to our other hostel in Venice Beach for FREE the next morning.