Last week I typed up here about the email I got from a boss about resting nicely, and I'd been wanting to respond to that email for days before getting back to work and seeing the other recipients. I never did, but one thought running through my head was like: I hope you all had a relaxing time that didn't involve strapping a toddler into a car-seat for forty hours.
That forty hours always seemed like a guesstimate, like twenty there and twenty back. We made the drive to Austin for Grandma June in something like 20 hours, but it turned out to be more like 22 because we gave up the hours. Austin is further than the Harrison Farm in Clarendon, but it's more of a straight shot across I-10, and then up. Amarillo and the Farm is on/off I-40, further north.
Anyway, I started the drive in Long Beach and went all the way to Blythe when Corrie took over; she finished the first night's drive at the hotel in Scottsdale. The next leg was her driving from Scottsdale to the Petrified Forrest in northern Arizona. I left from there and drove the leg to dinner that night in Grants, NM. She finished off that long travel day heading into Santa Rosa, NM, east of Albuquerque. The next morning I took the last quick leg from Santa Rosa into Amarillo for lunch, and Corrie drove us that last hour out to the Farm.
On the way home Corrie drove out of Clarendon all the way to Santa Rosa, and I took over from there and went the next 200 miles to Grants, where I sat in the car and read an email as she ran and got the key. The next day I drove the first leg, Grants to Flagstaff, Corrie drove from Flagstaff to Needles, in California, and I drove the rest of the way home, Needles into Barstow and down into the Southland.
My only Texas drive was that first hour from NM to Amarillo, and Corrie's only California drive was Blythe to the AZ border, and later the AZ border to Needles, a combined 20 miles. Weird when we put it together like that.
So, crunching the numbers got a little unwieldy. Observe:
According to Google Maps, the trek there was 1130 miles and the trek home was 1140 miles, give or take on both, and the time was around 35 hours. Corrie drove more getting there and I drove more getting back. I drove LA both times. It was neat to drive I-40; here is a reasonable two-lane freeway without much traffic. Cruise control works well, and with a 75 mph speed limit, the cruising is genuine.
When I took over in Needles, it was dark already but early, and a little later when I-40 ends in Barstow and you merge onto I-15, I realized that we'd just made it back to "LA."
Barstow is 55 miles north of San Bernardino, which itself is 70 miles away from us in Long Beach, but whereas I-40 is the direct opposite of nearly every drive I've ever made up or down I-5, switching over to the 15 was essentially being in LA again.
Freeway Inventory: Coming home I tried to take roads I don't know very well...like the 15 to the 60 or the 91 and over to the 710 I know quite well; I know what that drive is. Sometimes shitty, sometimes cool, and this was a Saturday night. Instead I left the 15 early for the 210 west into Claremont and Laverne, heading along the base of the mountains towards Pasadena. From there I took the 605 south, all the way into Long Beach, on the east side of town, and surface streets home.
I-605 is a funny highway. Not quite as fugly as our own "home" freeway, the 710, it lacks something nearly every freeway has around these parts: a destination marking that is the de facto name of the freeway.
Consider:
- I-710: Long Beach Freeway
- I-405: San Diego Freeway
- I-10: (in LA area) the Santa Monica Freeway
- I-5: Golden State Freeway
- CA 91: Artesia Freeway
- CA 22: Garden Grove Freeway
- I-210/CA 210: Foothill Freeway
- I-110: Harbor Freeway
- CA 90: Marina Freeway
- CA 57: Costa Mesa Freeway
Generally the names are the remnants of the old scheme that was done away with in the sixties for the current numbering scheme, and the names generally had to do with final destinations. I've noticed that neither the 105 nor the 605 have any kind of destination naming scheme entry, and for the entirety of southbound 605, every sign just said "THRU SOUTH".
Tangents aside, the Boy did quite well in the car for nearly an entire work week, only really freaking out the last hour or two, as I sped home. The last jaunt on 605 I had no more fucks to give, beyond making sure my wife and baby were going to remain living, and maneuvered through traffic (dense at 8:30 on a Saturday night) like Norm and I were headed to downtown Sac in my Datsun.
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