Highway to Hell
I spent the weekend in SF with my mom. It was lots of fun! We went up there for an info session on the program I am applying to. Because the info session was on Thursday evening, we decided to make a weekend of it and stay through Sunday. Our hotel was fantastic and in a great location (right near all the shops in Union Square). It was great learning more about the program I'm applying to, and it was also loads of fun seeing KM and my lil' bro (and his girlfriend and all his roommates).
Everything went really smoothly until yesterday, when we tried to leave. First there was an engine malfunction with my mom's car. We wanted to have that looked into before hitting the long drive home. That put us on the road a bit late, but it wasn't too much of a problem. An hour into the drive, right after you get to the part of the 5 freeway where there are just two lanes and nothing but rolling hills of dead grass around you, the traffic came to a complete stop. For 50 minutes! Apparently a trailer rolled and the driver had to be airlifted to a hospital. Of course, for most of those boring minutes, we didn't know why we were stopped (there aren't all that many AM radio stations in the middle of nowhere). We had to rely on the CB Radio of a near-by trucker for into on the delay. But, when we started moving, my mother and I were feeling optimistic again and ready to continue on the journey home. We were feeling so optimistic in fact that we thought milkshakes were in order. And what goes better with milkshakes than some onion rings and crosscut fries?
About a half hour after our fattening and fried snacks, we saw one of those computerized signs saying the Grapevine was closed because of a fire. GREAT. We were still many many miles from home and the detour they provided would dump us near Paso Robles after passing through 45 miles of narrow curving mountain roads. And then, Paso Robles is a good 3.5/4 hours to LA without traffic. The traffic on the 101 going back into LA on a Sunday night is usually pretty heavy, but since the 5 traffic was added to the normal 101 traffic, there were just way too many people on the road. Our average speed from Santa Barbara back to the Southbay was 20 MPH. Joy.
We got back to my parents house at 10:30 and I got home to LBC at 11. It was a long, long day.
The only fun parts were that we were so bored with the driving and the snail's pace that we decided to keep snacking. After the fried-food-and-milkshake extravaganza, we got sandwiches at Starbucks (best sandwiches ever!) and potato chips at a gas station. We were snacking our way through the state. And today I feel appropriately sluggish.
Treadmill, here I come!
Everything went really smoothly until yesterday, when we tried to leave. First there was an engine malfunction with my mom's car. We wanted to have that looked into before hitting the long drive home. That put us on the road a bit late, but it wasn't too much of a problem. An hour into the drive, right after you get to the part of the 5 freeway where there are just two lanes and nothing but rolling hills of dead grass around you, the traffic came to a complete stop. For 50 minutes! Apparently a trailer rolled and the driver had to be airlifted to a hospital. Of course, for most of those boring minutes, we didn't know why we were stopped (there aren't all that many AM radio stations in the middle of nowhere). We had to rely on the CB Radio of a near-by trucker for into on the delay. But, when we started moving, my mother and I were feeling optimistic again and ready to continue on the journey home. We were feeling so optimistic in fact that we thought milkshakes were in order. And what goes better with milkshakes than some onion rings and crosscut fries?
About a half hour after our fattening and fried snacks, we saw one of those computerized signs saying the Grapevine was closed because of a fire. GREAT. We were still many many miles from home and the detour they provided would dump us near Paso Robles after passing through 45 miles of narrow curving mountain roads. And then, Paso Robles is a good 3.5/4 hours to LA without traffic. The traffic on the 101 going back into LA on a Sunday night is usually pretty heavy, but since the 5 traffic was added to the normal 101 traffic, there were just way too many people on the road. Our average speed from Santa Barbara back to the Southbay was 20 MPH. Joy.
We got back to my parents house at 10:30 and I got home to LBC at 11. It was a long, long day.
The only fun parts were that we were so bored with the driving and the snail's pace that we decided to keep snacking. After the fried-food-and-milkshake extravaganza, we got sandwiches at Starbucks (best sandwiches ever!) and potato chips at a gas station. We were snacking our way through the state. And today I feel appropriately sluggish.
Treadmill, here I come!
posted by Follow the Frog at 12:32 PM
1 Comments:
now i have "life is a highway" stuck in my head... it's my own highway to hell now i suppose!
p.s. it's good to be back!
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