800 Mile Drive, final act

The trip home is mostly just like the trip down but with an earlier start and in reverse. This time we stop in Bakersfield for lunch. While we're there I drop Matt at the mall to see if he can spend his American Eagle gift card and I grab a bowl of Yoshinoya Beef Bowl down the street. There's no Yoshinoya close to home so it's a treat. Then I get Long John Silver's chicken planks meals for Glenn.

Long John Silver expedition of July 2004

I shall digress here and say a few words about the Long John Silver expedition of July 2004. There are no convenient Long John Silver locations in our area so if I'm going to pass through Bakersfield I stop there. One trip I didn't stop in Bakersfield and after chatting with Glenn on the phone up near the 152 turn off I try to find one in a near by town. Turns out there isn't one anywhere in Santa Nella (home of Pea Soup Andersen's) or in Los Banos. I call information. There's one in Watsonville. I see a sign near Gilroy that says 12 miles to Watsonville. So when I get to the sign that says 'this way to Watsonville' (well, that's a paraphrase) I turn off the freeway and go for it. Turns out Watsonville is over the hills between Gilroy and the ocean. It takes about an hour to get through the winding two lane road. Finding the exact street address isn't easy either. I finally got Glenn's food and headed up Highway 1 to 17 which takes me through the pass from Santa Cruz to San Jose. It was a Sunday in the early evening. There was a lot of traffic trying to get back to San Jose from Santa Cruz. I probably added 3 hours all told to my trip to pick up a chicken plank meal, add a piece of chicken. Hushpuppies and slaw included. That's why this time we stopped in Bakersfield.

Miles and miles of miles and miles

For the rest of the trip north Matt mostly naps. I leave the radio off and start telling myself a story. I've gotten into the habit of just creating a story in my head to stave off the boredom. When I'm alone in the car I can set up my laptop with a microphone headset and speak the story out loud which is then captured by my Via Voice program and transcribed into a Word Document. Sometimes the story needs a lot of editing when dictated thru Via Voice. I haven't gotten it well 'trained' to recognize all the words I use yet. Add to that the ambient noise in the car and sometimes the final result is just plain funny.

The last leg of the journey

Anyway my storytelling keeps me pretty well occupied up to the Petro:3 stop where I race in to pee. I see two girls in long flowing gowns...oh yeah, the RenFaire! I jump in the car and get back on the freeway. I'm pretty sure that because I'm fatigued from all the driving and anxious to get home that it takes me about 3 miles into the pass to realize I should have gotten gas at Petro; the gauge is showing about 1/8 tank remaining and there's just the Casa de Gas between here and Gilroy. I can make it to the Casa but I know I won't make it to Gilroy on an eighth of a tank. Casa de Gas can be a real pain in the Casa on any Sunday afternoon (I've nearly been killed by crazy people driving through the gas islands like it's the last lap at Laguna Seca. With the RenFaire I gloomily forsee a long line, backed up roads, people who've had too much mead and are anxious to get home to their MMORPGs...ick. I luck out. We get there around 5 and the RenFaire lets out at 6...the Casa de Gas is busy but sanity seems to be holding out with the patrons for the nonce. I get a pump pretty quickly and fill up the tank with $2.49 per gallon gas. It was about ten cents a gallon cheaper at Petro but I'm grateful enough that there's a gas station here that I don't begrudge the extra $1.20 per tank.

The rest of the trip home is uneventful. We make good time and arrive home around 7. I really don't want to do it again, though. It's a week later and I'm still aching.

15 Hours on the Road

The 800 mile drive

I drove Matt down to see his girlfriend in Long Beach and back last weekend. Thought I might just write about the trip seeing as I haven't posted here in AGES. I am going to have to get back into the habit...

I live near San Jose, CA. The fastest way between here and Long Beach that doesn't involve air travel is a looooooooooong boooooorrrrring freeway down the middle of the state called Interstate 5. Interstate 5 can take you from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. When I hit the hotel Friday night I felt like I had taken that drive.

Might as well burn a vacation day and get out of here early

I was going to go to work that day but ended up asking the boss for a PTO day and he was ok with it. I still ended up doing a few hours of work in the morning before and after dropping Matt at his college campus. I did some laundry, packed most of my stuff that wasn't in the laundry, showered etc. and then went back to Foothill College to pick up the boy. I cannot wait for him to finally get a car. Of course he has to get a license first..that's an entire other story! I dropped him at home to get his stuff together and then went to Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed. I realized that I had neglected this chore for way too long and didn't want to risk such a long trip on old oil. Jiffy Lube always wants to do about $300 worth of work when all you want is a basic oil change. I managed to get out of there with only the oil change and a new air filter. (the old one did look pretty gross). We finally got out of town and onto the freeway around 12:30.

Casa de RenFaire

The first leg of the trip takes us down 85 to 101 past fragrant Gilroy (Garlic Capital of the World) then over the Pacheco Pass via 152 (some claim it's haunted) which takes us past Casa de Fruta which is an interesting little tourist trap. "Casa de Gas" "Casa de Wine" "Casa de Coffee Shop" etc, etc, Casa de GagMe. All this month it's the site of a Renaissance Faire which I may get the SO to take me to. On the trip back we had to stop at Casa because I was running low on gas. We got there around 5 and the RenFaire lot was quite full...and the faire ended at 6. One hour later and we'd have been stuck in the traffic jam from hell.

Only 350 or so miles to go!

We were making very good time so far, it was around 1:30 when we passed Casa. Our first pit stop is at the Petro:3 (that always looks like a Biblical citation, "Let us turn to Petro:3 vs. 10 and read the word of the Lord") gas station near the San Luis Rey reservoir which is another 10 minutes or so down the road. I pee for about half a day (it's all the Arizona Diet Green Tea I drink), the boy buys junk food. The Petro station is a truck stop and the mini-mart in the front has all kinds of interesting things. One trip a few years back I saw a bottle of "Cisco" cologne and bought it as a gag gift for my then boss. He still has it on his shelf in the office at work. hee hee.

Finally, the I-5

Back on the 152 for a few miles then we merge onto the I-5 southbound. The 99 goes through all the little central California towns (and some not so little) but the 5 avoids them completely. I set the cruise control at 75 and we're off. I won't bore you with too many details...wait, I can't, there *are no details* with which to bore you on the I-5. The stockyards at Colinga are always pleasant and I manage to shut down the air intake just in time. You know you can find anything if you Google for it...I wondered about some statistics on the stockyard...and voila! "Harris Feeding company: modern feedlot covering nearly 800 acres with the capacity to produce 250,000 head of fed cattle per year." Linkie

Sorry Buck, I can't stop by your museum this time around

We by-pass Bakersfield (which is my usual stopover spot, my former home and where I went to college as well as home to the Buck Owen's Crystal Palace Museum)and keep heading south over the Grapevine. We stop at the McDonald's in Gorman near the top of the pass and pee again as well as get Matt some food. They don't sell dippin dots in Gorman. This is a grave disappointment to Matt. Surprisingly he doesn't insist we turn around and go home where they have dippin dots like truly civilized people. There may actually be more to Gorman than the 6 or 7 buildings clustered around the freeway exit/entrance but it's well hidden if so.

Sunset thru the smog

It's around 6:30 when we start to hit the outskirts of LA. We've gone past the miles of nothing between Pyramid Lake and Magic Mountain where things start to get civilized again over in the Santa Clarita Valley. Now we're heading downhill into the L.A. basin. In the Valley and over the Sepulveda Pass the bad traffic is all headed north. Right around Ventura freeway interchange the southbound begins to slow and by the Santa Monica freeway interchange we're going about 10-20 mph and don't speed up until we're past LAX. The boy and I listen to the debate on the radio and have some interesting conversations about the war, the economy, etc.

Honey, I'm home!

Finally, 7:30, we're in Long Beach. The Yahoo map tells us that the college is on North Bellflower. The Bellflower exit has 2 options North or South. I figure North. Let me say upfront that this was the wrong choice. John Kerry would be proud of me because I fully admit this decision was the wrong exit at the wrong direction at the wrong time. I get a couple miles down the road and decide to pull in at a 76 station because 1)I have to pee very, very urgently and didn't think to wear Depends (I may re-think that option next time)and 2) to ask the person inside which way to the college. I thought it was a gas station rule that they had to know where things near them were. What has happened to gas station attendant ethics in this country??? The lady behind the counter says "no restroom, broken" and "what college?" in heavily accented English. Just outside the door at the gas pumps a young lady who has overheard this unproductive conversation says "The college is just down that way" pointing back the way we came. I pull out and we head back. Finally we're there, the boy calls his g/f on his cell as we turn down the street of dormatories and as we pull into a parking spot she comes running towards the car. I chat with her briefly once she is released from the bearhug my son is giving her and then I head off.

Alone for now

First stop, the Borders bookstore I passed on the way. I use the bathroom and in gratitude buy books. Actually I wanted something to read over the weekend, but I was grateful for the bathroom. I got Carrie and The Stand. For some reason I just wanted to read those two books. I probably have 4 copies of The Stand now.

The Hilton Hotel

I need 4 Hilton stays (three now) before the end of January to get an upgrade to Gold VIP status. With Gold VIP status you can stay on the concierge floor and get access to the concierge lounge for happy hour and continental breakfast, free room upgrades and other goodies. I like Hiltons and try to stay in one or an affiliated hotel (Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites, Doubletree). Since there are very likely to be 3 more trips in the next few months (Glenn's birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas) there's a really good chance I'll earn the upgrade. Anyway, at the front desk there was a short woman with very black hair, middle aged, maybe 50's, pale makeup and red lipstick. This was not a good look for her. She checked me in to a room on the 10th floor. I asked her if there was highspeed internet in the rooms and she said there was. Goodie. I take my luggage thru the very elegant lobby, past two very nice restaurants and call the elevator.

Scary American on the Elevator

Up to the 10th floor I go. There is a cute little girl hugging a clear plastic shopping tote full of stuff with Japanese characters and illustrations. The woman standing beside her is carrying quite a few store bags. "Good day shopping?" I say. She smiles somewhat nervously and says a soft "Yes" just then her floor comes up and as she goes she says "Bye bye" very quickly and hurries off with the little girl. The whole time in the elevator the girl (I'm guessing her daughter) stared at her shoes. I wonder if they were visiting from Japan and if thought I was crazy...oh well.

Can't get lost finding the room this time

The room was close to the elevator which a lot of people don't like but I actually prefer. I get lost easily and find myself wandering hotel hallways looking for my room. I open the door and it's a nice enough room, very small bathroom but nice. There's a sliding glass door opening to a balcony which, unlike some places I've been, isn't 10 inches from door to railing, but big enough to actually stand outside on. The room faces a main thouroghfare (8 lanes total) and even with the door closed it's a bit noisy. I turn on the heater/cooler unit fan and it blocks the noise pretty well. I settle in and one of the first things I do after ordering room service for dinner (since I'm too tired to go out to eat) is plug in the laptop.

I wish there was a nice computer network jack in the wall

Hmmm. The hotel is all set up with wireless highspeed internet service. This, to most folk would be a really neat thing. "Just find the "Showcase" access on your wireless settings program and select." I brought my work laptop since it has a CD/DVD player and I brought a DVD (Soul Music, an animated version of the Discworld novel by the same name) to watch. My work laptop has the Cisco Aironet Client Utility installed. I cannot figure out how to find the wireless "station" here at the hotel. I call my company tech support. They can't help me either. While I'm trying to explain things to tech support room service comes with my caesar salad. I tell the tech guy thanks, let him go and turn my focus to the food.

N2S: When you call home, make small talk before asking the technical questions

I call home to Glenn and he's not too thrilled that I'm calling him for tech support before I even say "Hi, I'm here safe and sound" Well, if I'm calling to ask about my laptop wireless connection I'm not dying in a ditch or in the ICU somewhere...I just figured that was self evident. OK, ok, it was insensitive. But I was trying to get online to chat with him! He says he can't help me, that each time he sets up a wireless connection on my computer he has to figure it out by trial and error. I give up, shut the laptop down, change into my "Sleepless in Seattle" nightshirt and plop on the bed to read Carrie. After reading for awhile I get tired, call the automated wakeup call system with an 8 am wakeup and then go to sleep...the bed is very comfy, down comforter, down pillows (I got a room with 2 doubles so there are 4 pillows).

Saturday

8:00 rolls around and I had hung out a breakfast express order on the door the night before with an 8:30 delivery time so I got dressed and propped myself on the bed to read till it arrived. Why can't room service toast be toasted? I got warm bread, still soft, wrapped in a cloth napkin. yum. The eggs and bacon were perfect. I took a nibble of the hash browns...ewww. Tasted like soap. I didn't realize they were going to be an option...I might have asked them to substitute something else. Saturday stretched out ahead of me now. I was in L.A., alone and I could go anywhere or do anything I want. I read all day, except for the quick trip to the grocery to grab some munchies and my Arizona Diet greet tea. Oh, I took a little nap too. I think I just needed a battery recharge.

Sunday

Matt wanted me to be there to pick him up at 7 am. I got up at 5:30 and gave myself an hour to get there. Good thing, I couldn't find the freeway using the street I was certain I remembered from 21 years ago as being a straight shot to the freeway. Ended up having to ask at a gas station (this time there was a knowledgeable young man at the counter who had taken the hippocratic oath of gas station attendants) and boy had I been going in the wrong direction. I got to the college in Long Beach a bit before 7 and picked up Matt. Getting back to the hotel was no problem. Matt wanted an egg mcmuffin, got it; a shower, took it; and I told him I wasn't ready to hit the road quite yet so he took a nap. I read some more. We finally left L.A. around 11 am.

Next stop...

you'll have to wait till I do my next entry. I'm heading off to bed.