Thursday, July 21, 2011

Walking in L.A.

I don't feel the draw to Los Angeles that many people do.

Sure, the weather is nice and can differ by 20 degrees depending on if you're in 'the valley' as opposed to other places.

....not that one can get to those places!!!

OMG - I hate the 405.  But to be honest, I hate the 101 and the 5 too.  And the side streets.  At least I hate them at rush hour.  Like, hate-hate.  Not just hate.

Yes, no body walks in L.A., but they sure do crawl.

I was about 57 miles south of Los Angeles yesterday - and how long do you think it took me to get to my hotel?   Granted I left the client site at 16:15, so I knew I'd hit some traffic. 

I was to have dinner with my friend Tony who told me it would take 90 minutes.  I didn't mind.  He said he'd never do that for anyone.   Nice.   My GPS told me it would take one hour and 37 minutes.  Tony was off by seven.  The GPS was off by more.

That seven became nine, which became 30 which became 54. 

Two hours and 45 minutes to go 57 miles.  And let me tell you, for some of that - in the middle - drive, I was going 80 mph for quite a length of time.  It was the other 2 hours that I never made it past 20 mph.   ...and the only thing that's worse than having to take a dump (yeah, I went there) while stuck on the freeway, five lines over from an exit, is knowing you'd have to get back on the freeway.  Totally worth holding it in.

I got off the freeway at one point to try to take surface roads.   That did not help matters.  It was horribly frustrating.  I finally got to my hotel around 19:00 with just 30 minutes to spare before Tony swung by to pick me up for dinner.

We went out to Silver Lake and had dinner at Edendale.  OMG, it was great.  Too much tequila for Blobby, but he wasn't driving.   It wsn't the booze though - the food selection made it very difficult to decide what to order.  I finally settled on the bacon wrapped meat loaf.    ....somewhere Morty just ejaculated.   

However, the marinated sweet peppers for a starter was just INCREDIBLE.   ..so was the tequila.

I don't know that Tony or the meal made up for the shitty commute, but I'll let it slide. 

I could never to this day in - day out.  The drive that is.  I could eat dinner with Tony most any time

BTW, the title image pic does not even begin to show the horrors that are the 405.  It was much more packed with cars, trucks and motorcycels.    I'd have to kill someone if I did that daily. 



Song by:  Missing Persons

2 comments:

tornwordo said...

And it's been that way for decades. When I lived in Long Beach and went to school at UCLA, I learned to loathe everything about the 405. Once I had a 7 mile commute for a few years. It routinely took me 45 minutes to get to and from work. No climate is worth that.

don said...

You would kill us all if you did that daily. LA is totally unsustainable not that anyone in the US cares about climate change. Even as they fry their asses off.