Sunday, August 07, 2005

Driving the freeway

Southern California is defined by its freeways. Period
Not the beaches, not the mountains that I love.
It is not defined by the big cities or the small quaint towns,
nor by the huge agribusinesses and entreprenurial spirit.

When you go somewhere or are looking for someone,
its the freeways you have to deal with first, and most of them are crap.
There used to be a rush hour, now its a rush twelve hours.
Usually from 6 am til 6pm you can figure on horrendous traffic jams wherever you wanted to go, and stupid drivers who go too fast, follow too close and talk on their phones too much.

On my recent vacation I drove a lot, on six freeways going and on five coming home plus one blessed highway. We, however, did not see much traffic since our departure time was well after the rush twelve hours. Our car zoomed through the worst areas of congestion with hardly a tap of the brakes, getting great mileage and spewing hardly any deadly greenhouse gases.
The many lanes they keep adding for daytime drivers makes night passages a breeze for crazy guys like me. At midnight I needed a shot of love ( bob dylan) so I got gas for the car and cappucino for me.
I was tired by 1 am, but not near as tired as the manager at the SHORES INN in Ventura. He was tough to wake up! I called, I rang the bell, I finally resorted to saying "HELLO!" through the open window of his unit. 15 minutes to get this guy to turn on the lights.
I am obnoxious, yes, but paying for the priveledge. He wants to be in the hotel business and have a limit on what times guests can arrive. anyway, to his credit he does not curse me aloud, but tells me clearly that he "does not work nights" and is moving very slowly with his eyes half shut. His complaining that he gets no sleep is lost on me who thrives on five to six hours a day.
Plus, this guy is in his thirties (maybe)! He should be full of energy. I mistook him for the owner of the establishment, it seems to me now that he was not, for he did not have the look of an owner, nor did his wife have a bindi on her forehead.
( I lost my freeway thing, better take the next exit, merging to the right>>>>>>
there I go down the offramp ~~~~~~ )

2 comments:

Joe said...

Hehe! That was fun!

Jenny said...

Wow dear. That sounds like serious trip-planning.

Have a great week!