Life in the Passing Lane
I’ve given up trying to figure out how many miles I’ve driven on my treks back and forth to Kentucky, and with the price of gas I’m afraid to try and calculate how much future trips will cost. One recent road trip that didn’t cost me anything was last week when I drove from Fremont, CA (between San Jose and San Francisco) to Phoenix. It was a 750 mile jaunt from the mountains of Northern California, through the urban sprawl (and traffic crawl) of Los Angeles, finishing with a long stretch through the High Deserts of California and Arizona. All told it took about 10 hours, 42 gallons of gas, 2 bags of Combos, 3 bottles of soda, a pack of cigarettes and only one stop to pee.
It was an interesting drive that offered a lot of beautiful scenery and a drive down memory lane. I was stationed in the California desert for 4 years, and my two oldest sons were born there. While the base I was stationed at was too far out of the way to add to my route, many of the areas I drove through were familiar cities and towns that I had visited while I lived out there from 98 to 2002. I had been to California twice last year for shoots, but never had time to wander far from where I was working. This time however work dictated a drive from our plant in Fremont to the Toyota proving grounds at an undisclosed location near Phoenix. I was excited about the drive and just the same, not looking forward to spending so much time behind the wheel. The drive was painless though, as the scenery flashed by and changed gradually as the miles rolled on the odometer.
A few hours into my drive, I was reminded of one of the things about California that I didn’t miss: LA traffic. While I was stationed over an hour from Los Angeles, I ventured there just often enough to know that it wasn’t anywhere I’d want to live. I don’t know exactly what it is about that city that bugs me, but something does. While I’m sure the traffic was a good part of it, DC traffic is no better and I’d choose to move back there long before I’d elect to reside in LA.
I quickly grew tired of the tortoise like pace of the cars and trucks around me, but luckily I didn’t have to suffer long. As the traffic broke open and I guided my rented wheels onto “the 10”, I was quickly reintroduced to one of my favorite things about California– speed. Once you hit the desert, the speed limit jumps to 75, which isn’t too bad. Many of the folks out there however find that a speed about 35mph fast is a much more efficient pace. I was happy to oblige the cars and trucks around me as we sped up to speeds I only get to see on NASCAR tracks back home. Believe it or not, 110 miles an hour doesn’t feel that fast. It also must not seem that fast to the state troopers out there because one was parked on the side of the road in an apparent speed trap. When I saw him I quickly dropped to a seemingly slow-motion 85. (I’ve found that most highway patrolmen will tolerate 10 miles an hour over the limit as long as you’re on a 4 lane highway and seem to have your vehicle under control.) The rest of the 100MPH+ pack kept up their pace, seemingly daring the officer to try and stop them. He looked in their direction but seemed unfazed.
Once I was out of radar / laser range, I kicked it back up and enjoyed the speed while I could. As the sun started setting and the road grew a bit more windy the ebb and flow of the traffic slowed as well.
Looking back at the speeds we got up to, it makes me laugh a bit when I think back to all those high-speed chases you see on the evening news. The one’s in LA are even more comical in the way the reporter stresses the fact that “this case has reached speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour”. It’s comical because when traffic is moving on the highways in and around LA, 100MPH is hardly a shocking speed.
At one point, just outside Palm Springs, I pulled off the freeway, broke out the video camera and set it up on the passenger side of the mid-sized SUV I’d been captaining. I pointed it out the windshield and hit the record button. The battery and hard drive lasted the remainder of the trip surprisingly enough, resulting in a 4+ hour long clip of the trip from mid day to sun set as I wound though the desert. When I got to the hotel, I took the footage and sped it up about 2000% and set it to music. I can now relive a portion of my trip in about 3 minutes. While it’s fun to watch the trip in fast forward, it was one that I’m glad I got to enjoy at a more normal speed.
here’s the video…
