Okay, so I got up at 3am and drove to Indianapolis
to fly to Los Angeles and drive to Palm Springs for PC's wedding.
Yahoomaps did not do me so well this time. The exit numbers on many a highway have changed! And the maps you get are zoomed in too far or zoomed out too far to be of much help if you get lost.
ATA would not let me use the self-service kiosk to get my boarding pass. They claimed that there was another person with my name on the flight and they needed to take my driver's license and check in the back to see that things were kosher. I keep asking myself what I did to become special. But on the flight back I was no longer special. *shrug*
It occured to me on my flight that I do not know what to do in case of an earthquake. This thought is compounded with news of earthquake activity in the area in the previous week. I wish knew what we were flying over 'cause I don't know where this is:
or what this is:
My Guy and I just saw the movie "Crash" the ensemble LA movie about race and traffic. It was decent with a good soundtrack. But as a result I was terrified of driving in LA: the accidents, the traffic, the LAPD. So the guy at the rental agency was able to snow me into getting tons of insurance and other ridiculous pricey package features. It sounds great when they offer you an upgrade (for safety) but it means that you will pay a lot more for gas ($42 to fill the tank compared to my usual $22 here).
Driving on the highway is LA is strange. Nobody can speed because there's too many cars and someone is always puttering in the fast lane at 50 or 60 mph. There's a lot of people tailgating. The tailgaters offer an added complication as traffic speeds and slows for no apparent reason. No one uses their blinker because the element of surprise is so valuable when you are trying to change lanes. Highways merge and divide and with each change in the road there is traffic. The last traffic jam of the drive was a three fire engine, four ambulance, moving people on stretchers very bad accident.
When you get far enough from LA you can finally speed (speed limit's 70). And as you enter Palm Springs you realize that you are in the desert.
There are signs warning of rock slides and:
There were windmills everywhere! Acres and acres of them on mountains and by the highway on the one side of town. Very cool!
4 comments:
Ahh memory Lane. Yes you are right, you can't speed in LA, too many cars. In fact sometimes the fastest lane is the right lane because nobody wants to drive there incase of merging (or frequently its an exit only). A little trick I learned when drving from Santa Barabara to San Diego.
Yes the windmills are cool aren't they!
Oh and the circular things are irrigated crops. That's as far as the watering arm reaches and it goes in a circle.
Wow, I got all cranky just *thinking* about not being able to speed. *wink* And this: "No one uses their blinker because the element of surprise is so valuable when you are trying to change lanes" has me laughing my ass off!!!!! You must have been swearing alot. ;)
SFMD: Thanks for the good info. I was at a loss. Clearly they weren't crop circles of the UFO kind... but what were they?
BBFK: I could not drive and talk on the cell phone in LA. JD called me while I was on the road and I about collided with a Semi that was "sneaking" into my lane!
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