The Exodus, Day Two
Day Two: Sacramento to Los Angeles, 384 miles
And on the sixth day, the Lord said, "Shit, I still have to put stuff between Sacramento and LA... Ah, whatever. Nobody's going to notice."
Even though the distance I had to drive on Day Two was far shorter than on Day One, I knew that I was still in for some shit because whenever I mentioned that Day 2 of my drive was a straight shot from Sacramento to LA, someone would make a smartass remark.
My Dad: “Oh, Sacramento to LA. Well, have fun with that.”
My Mom: “You thought Portland to Sacramento was bad? Just wait until you drive to LA!”
Molly: “Yeah, Sacramento to LA. That’s a really interesting drive…”
I got into The Mystery Wagon at 9:00 AM expecting a drive that would rival The Hours in terms of unrelenting boredom. I pulled out my iPod, freshly charged from the previous night, plugged it into the stereo, and set my road trip playlist to ‘Shuffle,’ hoping that 4.6 hours of classic rock would be enough to carry me through the daymare ahead.
As soon as I hit ‘Play’, the iPod froze up and refused to so much as turn off.
“This… Does not bode well.” I muttered, pulling out of the parking lot, tuneless, and turning on the radio.
Good little liberals that we are, the dial on The Mystery Wagon’s radio is usually glued to 91.5, the Portland station for National Public Radio. In Sacramento, 91.5 is the frequency for a death metal station. As I cycled through the other presets, I found static, Christian music, country and western, and finally a Spanish language station that only played the sort of mariachi band power ballads you hear in Mexican restaurants. I stuck with that station, as I am technically Mexican and because it still beat the crap out of all the other options, and also Portland’s KINK FM.
It didn’t take long before I was blazing down the two lane highway hemmed in on either side by fields of dirt, The Mystery Wagon buffeted by strong gusts of wind filled with dust and hay. Sacramento shrank away in my rear view mirror, a small island of culture (and late night prostitution) in the center of a vast ocean of boring, boring agriculture.
The right lane was full of 18 wheelers (mercifully the three trailer death caravans that are so terrifying in Oregon are illegal in California) and the left lane was full of SUVs trying to pass the 18 wheelers. The road was arrow straight for miles until, in an exciting change, it gently curved to follow some low hills. As I drove further, the Spanish language mariachi station intermittently gave way to an R&B hip-hop station out of Stockton, the changes between the two punctuated by blasts of static.
The traffic briefly turned to bullshit as I-5 changed to four lanes on the way through Stockton. At one point, coming around a bend in the road, I spotted a California Highway Patrol cruiser parked in the bushes on the shoulder, the patrolman inside pointing a radar gun at traffic. Fortunately, I was wedged in between two semi trucks at the time, locking my speed in at well below the speed limit.
About thirty seconds after passing the cop, though, a black high performance lowrider Honda blasted past me at about 85, narrowly slipped through the space between me and the 18 wheeler in front, and then sped up and passed the truck on the right. 15 seconds after that, the California Highway Patrol cruiser blazed past in the left lane, lights and sirens going.
The duel between Vin Diesel and Eric Estrada marked Real California Experience number two.
Not long after, I started wishing that more gangbangers would start Tokyo Drifting all over the place, because as dangerous as it would be, it’d be something to distract me from how incredibly desolate and boring everything is between Stockton and Los Angeles.
I talked earlier about not seeing any signs of civilization between Ashland and Sacramento. That might have been a little bit of an exaggeration – I recall there was a city called Redding somewhere in the mix, perhaps most notable for its inclusion in the video game Fallout 2. But between Stockton and LA there is literally nothing. The closest thing to a town is the occasional roadside compound consisting of three gas stations, four fast food restaurants, and two hotels, and I feel like those are only there because somebody at CalTrans said “Jesus, guys, we’ve got to put something out there. How little can we pay people to set up a 76, a Dennys, and a Best Western in rural Wasco County?”
When I stopped for lunch and gas at one such outpost I was able to get the iPod working again, which made the next three hours quite a bit more bearable as I hurtled down the road toward a blank horizon. Eventually, the distant form of a mountain began to fade into view, and I realized that what I’d assumed was a blank horizon was actually just a heavy blanket of smog.
I had to be close.
Yes, this was Frazier Mountain, the last line of defense between Los Angeles County and all that nothing. The Mystery Wagon and I had been looking forward to no more steep grades, but alas, it was our only way in. Again, I put the pedal* to the metal and reached speeds of 45, while an unending parade of impatient SUV douchebags, eager to get back to their hot tubs and coke parties in Beverly Hills deemed my driving too slow even for the right lane and angrily blazed past on the left.
*Jesus, I have a lot of grammar conscious readers.
Coming down the other side of the Tejon Pass I was unceremoniously dumped into the nonstop bullshit carnival of the San Fernando Valley. The Interstate widened to five lanes, signs ordered motor coaches and 18 wheelers to take different off ramps, cars were passing on both sides even though I was driving at the prevailing speed in one of the righthand lanes, theme parks sprouted up on either side of the road, motorcycles zipped between cars (which is legal!?), and I navigated it all on a magic carpet of sweaty palms and profanity.
And then, finally, my GPS unit told me to get off the freeway and onto surface streets again. Three blocks later, I had arrived at my apartment in Studio City, at the foot of Laurel Canyon.
It’s a nice neighborhood, albeit one with no sidewalks (shame on me for wanting to walk anywhere in LA, anyway). I’m within spitting distance of a gas station, a video store, and a Ralph’s,* which is about all I really need.
*Home of cheap, tax-free California supermarket liquor. I was going to offer to take orders from my over-21 friends back in Oregon and drive back up at the end of the summer with a Mystery Wagon full of discounted hooch, but according to Molly that’s a felony, so… Sorry.
But the Ralph’s won’t take my Safeway Club Card. Savages.
Truman Capps heard that George Clooney lives in Studio City, and might just take up jogging in hopes of spontaneously bumping into him somewhere around here.
And on the sixth day, the Lord said, "Shit, I still have to put stuff between Sacramento and LA... Ah, whatever. Nobody's going to notice."Even though the distance I had to drive on Day Two was far shorter than on Day One, I knew that I was still in for some shit because whenever I mentioned that Day 2 of my drive was a straight shot from Sacramento to LA, someone would make a smartass remark.
My Dad: “Oh, Sacramento to LA. Well, have fun with that.”
My Mom: “You thought Portland to Sacramento was bad? Just wait until you drive to LA!”
Molly: “Yeah, Sacramento to LA. That’s a really interesting drive…”
I got into The Mystery Wagon at 9:00 AM expecting a drive that would rival The Hours in terms of unrelenting boredom. I pulled out my iPod, freshly charged from the previous night, plugged it into the stereo, and set my road trip playlist to ‘Shuffle,’ hoping that 4.6 hours of classic rock would be enough to carry me through the daymare ahead.
As soon as I hit ‘Play’, the iPod froze up and refused to so much as turn off.
“This… Does not bode well.” I muttered, pulling out of the parking lot, tuneless, and turning on the radio.
Good little liberals that we are, the dial on The Mystery Wagon’s radio is usually glued to 91.5, the Portland station for National Public Radio. In Sacramento, 91.5 is the frequency for a death metal station. As I cycled through the other presets, I found static, Christian music, country and western, and finally a Spanish language station that only played the sort of mariachi band power ballads you hear in Mexican restaurants. I stuck with that station, as I am technically Mexican and because it still beat the crap out of all the other options, and also Portland’s KINK FM.
It didn’t take long before I was blazing down the two lane highway hemmed in on either side by fields of dirt, The Mystery Wagon buffeted by strong gusts of wind filled with dust and hay. Sacramento shrank away in my rear view mirror, a small island of culture (and late night prostitution) in the center of a vast ocean of boring, boring agriculture.
The right lane was full of 18 wheelers (mercifully the three trailer death caravans that are so terrifying in Oregon are illegal in California) and the left lane was full of SUVs trying to pass the 18 wheelers. The road was arrow straight for miles until, in an exciting change, it gently curved to follow some low hills. As I drove further, the Spanish language mariachi station intermittently gave way to an R&B hip-hop station out of Stockton, the changes between the two punctuated by blasts of static.
The traffic briefly turned to bullshit as I-5 changed to four lanes on the way through Stockton. At one point, coming around a bend in the road, I spotted a California Highway Patrol cruiser parked in the bushes on the shoulder, the patrolman inside pointing a radar gun at traffic. Fortunately, I was wedged in between two semi trucks at the time, locking my speed in at well below the speed limit.
About thirty seconds after passing the cop, though, a black high performance lowrider Honda blasted past me at about 85, narrowly slipped through the space between me and the 18 wheeler in front, and then sped up and passed the truck on the right. 15 seconds after that, the California Highway Patrol cruiser blazed past in the left lane, lights and sirens going.
The duel between Vin Diesel and Eric Estrada marked Real California Experience number two.
Not long after, I started wishing that more gangbangers would start Tokyo Drifting all over the place, because as dangerous as it would be, it’d be something to distract me from how incredibly desolate and boring everything is between Stockton and Los Angeles.
I talked earlier about not seeing any signs of civilization between Ashland and Sacramento. That might have been a little bit of an exaggeration – I recall there was a city called Redding somewhere in the mix, perhaps most notable for its inclusion in the video game Fallout 2. But between Stockton and LA there is literally nothing. The closest thing to a town is the occasional roadside compound consisting of three gas stations, four fast food restaurants, and two hotels, and I feel like those are only there because somebody at CalTrans said “Jesus, guys, we’ve got to put something out there. How little can we pay people to set up a 76, a Dennys, and a Best Western in rural Wasco County?”
When I stopped for lunch and gas at one such outpost I was able to get the iPod working again, which made the next three hours quite a bit more bearable as I hurtled down the road toward a blank horizon. Eventually, the distant form of a mountain began to fade into view, and I realized that what I’d assumed was a blank horizon was actually just a heavy blanket of smog.
I had to be close.
Yes, this was Frazier Mountain, the last line of defense between Los Angeles County and all that nothing. The Mystery Wagon and I had been looking forward to no more steep grades, but alas, it was our only way in. Again, I put the pedal* to the metal and reached speeds of 45, while an unending parade of impatient SUV douchebags, eager to get back to their hot tubs and coke parties in Beverly Hills deemed my driving too slow even for the right lane and angrily blazed past on the left.
*Jesus, I have a lot of grammar conscious readers.
Coming down the other side of the Tejon Pass I was unceremoniously dumped into the nonstop bullshit carnival of the San Fernando Valley. The Interstate widened to five lanes, signs ordered motor coaches and 18 wheelers to take different off ramps, cars were passing on both sides even though I was driving at the prevailing speed in one of the righthand lanes, theme parks sprouted up on either side of the road, motorcycles zipped between cars (which is legal!?), and I navigated it all on a magic carpet of sweaty palms and profanity.
And then, finally, my GPS unit told me to get off the freeway and onto surface streets again. Three blocks later, I had arrived at my apartment in Studio City, at the foot of Laurel Canyon.
It’s a nice neighborhood, albeit one with no sidewalks (shame on me for wanting to walk anywhere in LA, anyway). I’m within spitting distance of a gas station, a video store, and a Ralph’s,* which is about all I really need.
*Home of cheap, tax-free California supermarket liquor. I was going to offer to take orders from my over-21 friends back in Oregon and drive back up at the end of the summer with a Mystery Wagon full of discounted hooch, but according to Molly that’s a felony, so… Sorry.
But the Ralph’s won’t take my Safeway Club Card. Savages.
Truman Capps heard that George Clooney lives in Studio City, and might just take up jogging in hopes of spontaneously bumping into him somewhere around here.