Travel

We’d grown better able to avoid the ghettos by this second visit to Baltimore, and we saw a fair amount of the city, although our time was a little limited. This time through, we did get to eat at the Overlea and we made it downtown as well. And then it was time to move on…

We took the old road, US 1, from Baltimore to Washington and I relived a little more of my childhood as we passed the Laurel Shopping Center, where my mom and I used to hang out while my did went to the horse races (and where George Wallace was shot in 1972). Hechts and the Hot Shoppes have moved on, but the Giant Food is still there, original sign in place…

We met Juan Felipe at a Colombian restaurant with amazing food on Glebe Road in Arlington. He gave us the tour of the town (which is more appealing than I’d remembered) and put up with us until rush hour subsided, while somehow managing to avoid being photographed…

And then there was a very long drive back to Greensboro, which seemed even longer since it didn’t start until 8:00 at night…

Early (relatively) breakfast at Waffle House followed by goodbyes which tried with mixed success not to be tearful. Then Mark and I were off to Charlotte to take one more turn through town, drop off the car, and fly back to this place which we’ve both come to hate so very much…

Back to DFW, back to SFO, back to the Best Western El Rancho Inn in Millbrae, and then back to harsh reality of a smelly, undestocked, overpriced Bay Area supermarket where we stopped to get essentials on the way home. It’s only fitting that our first stop upon returning would be at Albertsons…

Our East Coast fate is pretty well sealed. It’s too hard to resist the more reasonable cost of living, the more rational population, the well-stocked supermarkets, the plentiful nearby road trip options, the better food, and so on and so on…

Details to follow…

Unlike most of my past cross–country road trips, I wouldn’t be making this one alone. Also, this one had a goal at one end: our relocation from San Francisco to Charlotte. We’d already shipped a pod and about 35 boxes to our destination, and we still had a rather sizeable load in the car as well. We’d had a lot of work done on said car, and I was relatively confident about its ability to get us across, despite its age and its nearly nonexistent shocks…

The weeks prior to the move had been brutal; it’s even more of a pain in the ass to leave San Francisco than it is to live there. And the day of our departure was no different. We had one final run-in with our psychotic downstairs neighbor which ended in me telling him (in so many words) to go fuck himself. And the last thing we did in San Francisco involved sitting on the sidewalk in front of FedEx on Harrison Street, packing up one last emergency load of stuff to ship, since the car was overflowing. I’ll probably always chuckle thinking about us squatting down on the sidewalk South of Market sorting our undies into neat little piles for shipping, although it seemed slightly less amusing at the time…

After a torturous drive out of San Francisco, we made our way to Cupertino to have lunch with Dan in the Apple employee cafeteria, which made both of us wish we worked for a big high-tech company. After our goodbyes and yet another torturous drive across Highway 152 from Gilroy to Los Banos, we were finally on Highway 99 headed south and it felt like we had escaped the City of Doom for good…

The car was a little overloaded with a few things we’d been planning to drop off with Mark’s sister in Fresno, but it had been holding up just fine. Until we pulled into the Red Roof Inn. There was a loud thunk and a rattle, and then the car got really LOUD. I had very little doubt that we’d just lost our muffler…

All the same, we managed to keep our spirits up through dinner with Mark’s parents. It was only the second time I’d met them, and I thought things went really well. They were friendly and nice and we all got along very well and ate and talked well into the evening. And they offered us the use of the house for Saturday night since it seemed we’d still be in Fresno another day getting the car fixed…

Sunday morning brought a quick breakfast and goodbyes in Fresno before moving south on Highway 99. The car was definitely running much cooler and smoother, I must say. Much of my paranoia was gone and I was ready to start enjoying the trip and to stop worrying about the car, San Francisco, etc…

Our drive was a bit convoluted; we went from Fresno to near Riverside to check in to our motel and then back across to the other end of the LA basin for dinner. Long story. Suffice to say, the Motel 6 is Rubidoux is just about the creepiest place we stayed on the trip. Upon check-in, we were required to sign a non-aggression pact promising we wouldn’t harass any other guests. There were parking permits, liability waivers, and all these signs reminding us that Riverside County ordinance prohibited us from moving into the motel in a residential capacity. All this, mind you, was for a very suburban, almost rural location. I was a touch nervous, but the place seemed OK otherwise…

Dinner at the Saddle Peak Lodge in Calabassas was wonderful. Mark had elk. I had buffalo. There were large dead animals everywhere. There was also, for no apparent reason, mandatory valet parking despite the fact that the lot was both spacious and immediately adjacent. Standard LA, I guess. I once went to a Sizzler there which had valet parking…

After dinner, we drove around LA and the Valley for a while and I realized once again how much I was going to miss this strangely wonderful and exciting place. We planned a long visit soon…