3,000 miles in 3 days - Epilogue - California and the trip home

"Ventura Highway, in the sunshine. Where the days are longer. The nights are stronger than moonshine! You're gonna go, I know." - Ventura Highway, America

Had the boys in America ever been on the Ventura Highway? My experience was much different. I've driven the 101, at night, in the day, in the rain, and the sunshine. It snakes up through L.A. County, into Ventura, up through the Hollywood Hills, through the woods and around the fields. Perhaps sitting in bumper to bumper traffic does make the days longer. It could be that driving 107 miles per hour makes the night stronger than moonshine. Having been, though, I do not intend on going... at least not again. And that goes for the PCH, the 1, the 5, and the 405 as well. "Nobody walks in L.A." This is true. And because of that, they're all out on the freeways, 8 lanes wide, 2 inches between cars, moving at speeds that would make Mario Andretti nervous.

The horrors of L.A. driving aside, I did get to enjoy a day of Southern California. We made it cross-country in 3 days, getting in about 11 p.m. Saturday night, and my flight home didn't leave until Monday morning, so Sunday was to be spent in and around L.A.

We started Sunday morning by sleeping in about as much as we could force ourselves, which translated to about 10 a.m. Pacific time. Back onto the 101 to Oxnard. The motel was already north of L.A., so the drive up wasn't so bad, winding west through towns from Newbury Park, through Rancho Conejo, Camarillo, Springville, and Nyland Acres. We delivered some of Tim's belongings to his station, and checked in with his co-workers, toured a couple of the boats, and headed out.

Unfortunately, we weren't met with the warmest reception at the station, but we weren't going to let a couple of off-tempered Coasties ruin our day, and programmed TomTom to plot us a route to see Beverly Hills.

The first leg of our little excursion put us on 405 into Brentwood, to Sunset Boulevard through Brentwood and the Pacific Palisades. Tree lined streets barely obscured the driveways multi-million dollar mansions, each housing at least 2 exotic cars -- Ferraris seem the favorite. Even the Student Drivers drive BWMs, and our late-model Nissan Sentra garnered far more looks than a passing Maserati.

From there we hit the Pacific Coast Highway, out to Santa Monica Pier. We had lunch on the pier, and generally poked around like a couple of tourists. The PCH took us to the 5, and from there we hit the heart of Beverly Hills. Wilshire Boulevard, Rodeo Drive, Cartier, Gucci, Lotus of Beverly Hills... we looped the palm tree lined streets of America's most expensive zip code. Then, when we we turned From San Vicente onto Fairfax, Beverly Hills abruptly ran into Little Ethiopia; opulence directly abutted with poverty. On one side of the corner was BMW of Beverly Hills, and within spitting distance, a thrift store; Cartier blocks mere blocks from Carl's Jr.

After our brief tour of L.A., we headed back to the motel. A 6:30 a.m. flight meant waking up at 3:00, and we needed to get a bit of rest, but not before grabbing some dinner. There were a couple restaurants within walking distance, and we wandered over to see our options.

I decided on this last day, after 3 days of truckstops out on the road, that our last evening should reflect our return to civilization. We chose a typically California restaurant, enjoyed a couple of cold California-brewed beers, and dined on California-Mexican. Dinner was excellent, and not served to us by a surly waitress named Flo. We sat, relaxed, sipped our beers. After dinner, we walked over to Starbucks -- mostly because we could -- sat in oversized armchairs, and sipped lattés -- the first cups of coffee all trip not brewed at a truckstop. Not to take anything away from the various roadside eateries we'd hit along the way, but it was nice to have one night of civilized fare.

3 a.m. came quickly. And that early in the morning, the trip down to LAX was as pleasant as one could expect for L.A. driving. Surprisingly, once the airline employees arrived at 5:00, the rest of the process was painful -- I even had time for a coffee and a smoke. Unfortunately, LAX was the last time travel would be smooth that day, and in the end, driving cross-country in 3 days was easier than flying home.

US Air's East Coast hub is in Philadelphia, so rather than fly non-stop to NYC for nearly triple the price, I had selected a flight with a short lay-over in Philly. The flight to Philly was smooth and quick, which was advantageous on a transcontinental flight that didn't even offer a meal -- excuse me, I could have had the cheese tray for $7 out of my own pocket. As I would have expected -- I seem to fly Murphy Air -- I was seated next to disrespectful-cell-phone-guy, directly behind woman-with-a-baby. By some stroke of luck, this child slept through the whole flight, and never made a peep -- in fact, the guy next to me slept as well, so I bought the $5 headphones and let the in-fight movie drown out his snoring.

We touched down almost an hour early, which added to my lay-over, but gave me time for a smoke, and lunch of classic airport Sbarro's. By 3:30 (East Coast time) it was time to catch my connection, so we lined up at the gate, by section number, and boarded what they dared call a plane. Buses have more seating. We were boarded in 5 sections -- patrons scolded for lining up out of sequence -- for a plane with 11 rows of seats. When I got to my seat, someone was in it, and after double-checking both tickets, we determined the seat was double-booked. Out of 44 seats, 8 were double-booked, and after the 3rd occurrence, we determined we would consider the flight "open seating".

So, there we were, the 35 of us, including the pilot and flight attendant -- whose pre-flight instruction consisted of "read the card" -- tucking bags under empty seats due to impossibly small overhead compartments, and wondering what the possible delay could be on situating the handful of us for takeoff. 20 minutes passed before the "captain" informed us of a 45 minute arrival delay in New York -- 45 minutes we would spend on the tarmac, impossibly loud propeller engines rattling in our ears.

By the time we did take off, I feared we wouldn't have enough fuel left to make it to New York. I might have feared that all the people using their cell phones would disrupt the plane's electronics... if I believed the plane had any electronics. A couple times mid-flight I thought I heard one of the engines cut out, but it seemed to restart, and after about an hour, we did land safely. Now in New York, I had to figure out ground transportation home. The first issue was my miscalculation on "Air-Train" -- an MTA operated connecting train between the airport and other MTA transit points -- operates out of Kennedy and Newark, but not LaGuardia.

I scrambled. Now about an hour late of my carefully laid out plan, I had to get to Grand Central in time to catch the right train to New Haven, to connect with the last local train home. That train wouldn't leave New Haven until 9, but that meant leaving Grand Central by 7, and it was now after 6. A local bus could take me into Queens, to catch the number 7 train to Grand Central... but time was not on my side. Finally, I discovered the Grand Central Express bus, and $12 and 45 minutes later, I made it.

Of all modes of transportation I'd utilized in the past week, train was definitely the most regular and reliable, and with even time to grab one more quick cigarette in New Haven, I arrived in Branford, Connecticut, from Los Angeles, California, at 9:08 p.m. EST. I was hungry. I was exhausted. I was home.