Yesterday we left Los Altos about 2 hours behind schedule for Los Angeles. Our plan was to leave at noon but due to all kinds of unforseen delays, we didn't really head out till about 2pm. The weather was against us from the start. It was pouring rain and in some parts it was torrential, not unlike the monsoons in India. I took a little break from navigating and closed my eyes for a few minutes....woke up a few minutes later to find R had missed an exit to I-152 east to I-5 south! So we had to backtrack about 15 miles, not a great distance but due to the wretched rain it was almost a half hour delay. But part of the fun of doing a road trip like this is not having a real time deadline and getting to our destination as and when we do.
We drove thru some pretty large open spaces and land....everything in California is big...distances between cities is huge. My biggest gripe is that from Los Banos to Bakersfield on I-5, there is not a SINGLE Starbucks in sight!!!! There are 2000 Sbux stores in the state of California, you would think they would be all over the place!!! (I have to e mail my ex boss and tell him that particular stretch of the freeway is a gold mine waiting to happen).....and then by the time you see the sign for the one in Bakersfield, you have passed the exit - something else they have to fix!!! But the alu parathas that Sheena had packed for us more than compensated for the lack of coffee....thanks Sheena, they were yum!
The rain continued to torment us vascillating between an annoying drizzle and a blinding downpour. But we finally made our way into LA about 7.30pm and encountered the legendary LA traffic nightmare. We crawled our way to Marina del Ray and arrived at Shanker and Shobana's place about 8.30pm. For those who don't know, Shanker is R's cousin. To our pleasant surprise Kami and Sanjay were there too (Kami is Shanker's cousin on his mom's side).
Crashed into bed by 11pm....today we head on to glitzy Las Vegas for a couple of nights.
No comments:
Post a Comment