Road Trips : Los Angeles : Page Two
14 February 2003
Against our better judgment, we left on the Friday afternoon which began President's Day weekend. It was also Valentine's Day. Our original goal was to stop by Fresno and see Mark's sister, but we learned on the way down that she was out of town, so we headed straight for Bakersfield, with a stop in Coalinga and another for a romantic Valentine's Day dinner at an Arby's in a truck stop.
15 February 2003
After a Saturday morning breakfast at my favorite Bakersfield diner (discovered six years ago on a trip to Las Vegas), we explored downtown for a little while, looking at interesting buildings and wandering through the remains of a classic Woolworth's store which now houses an antique mall.
We stopped at Long's for previsions and cash, and made our way toward the Grapevine, hoping that the mudslide from a couple of days before had been cleared. Fortunately, it had.
We had one of those mileage milestones near the summit, which was the most eventful part of the Grapevine leg. Finally, we arrived in Greater Los Angeles, which is to say that we were within 40 or 50 miles of the center of town. We passed Magic Mountain and all the assorted beige suburbs, and finally the freeways started getting bigger and more intense.
We arrived at the lovely Motel 6 - LAX in time to realize that we'd be sharing it with about a hundred youth soccer teams. This wouldn't have been to much of a problem except that this particular Motel 6 was a former Howard Johnson's hotel, about 10 stories tall with only elevator access to the rooms. Unsupervised kids and elevators are not a good combination. But there was a king-size bed and a balcony overlooking an off-ramp. It was good...