Tuesday December 28, 2004 – Sojourn to Southern California

Tuesday December 28, 2004 – Sojourn to Southern California

Monday morning we woke to a winter storm that had begun drenching northern and southern California overnight. It broke a spell of dry warm weather that had characterized much of December, normally a wet month for the state. It continued to rain throughout the day from north of Redding, near the Oregon border all the way to Los Angeles. This was the day we had decided to drive down south to spend a couple of days in Dana Point, named for William Henry Dana, author of Ten Years Before the Mast.

From the moment we left home, the sky was overcast and drizzling. And to compound matters, the entire population of northern California appeared to have had the notion of driving south: either to return home from the Christmas holiday or to visit relatives during the week between Christmas and New Year. Driving south on 101 from San Jose to California 152 East, traffic resembled a weekday commute only more cars on the roads had more than one occupant, a clue that few in this pack were on their way to work.

At the highway 152 exit off 101, it took two lights at the end of the off-ramp to finally get onto 152 heading east. The traffic moved at or near the 60 mile per hour limit on the two-line highway—it’s two lanes for a good 15 miles—and then speeded up to 70 as 152 opened into a four-lane road at its junction with California 162. After another 30 miles or so, 152 intersects Interstate 5, the four-lane, straight-as-an-arrow freeway that slices California in half as it cuts a swatch from Canada to Mexico.

At the on-ramp to 5 the heavy traffic from 152 slowed to a crawl, as it merged onto the Interstate. Our hearts sank as we envisioned the entire length of 5 as continuous stop-and-go traffic, averaging 25 to 30 miles per hour, half the speed the highway normally averages. Three miles later the highway opened up after passing a just cleared accident. Our outlook lightened as we set our sights on the first and only stop en route, the Apricot Tree Restaurant at the Panoche Road exit some 90 miles south of the 152 interchange.

The rain continued to threaten throughout the 90-mile drive but failed to make good. We stopped at the Apricot Tree at about 12:40 and were once again aghast at the number of people now streaming off the freeway and into the three gas stations, adjacent to the restaurant. We were likewise dismayed at the near full parking lot and the line of people queued up for a table at the Apricot Pit. We waited a quarter of an hour for a table, were seated, and had a stick-to-your-ribs breakfast—we only order breakfast here, then waited our turn in the queue for the restrooms before finally getting back into the car, refueling at the crowded service station—a pump opened up as we pulled in, and resumed our journey south.

My wife “I” had bought along a book-on-tape to occupy our minds during the usual six-hour trek—The Bone Vault by Linda Fairstein. The female main character Alex Cooper is a prosecutor in New York City Attorney General Paul Battaglia’s office. She is called to the scene of a crime. It appears a young woman’s mummified body has been discovered, wrapped in mummy wrap and contained within the coffin of an Egyptian Princess. The prosecutor along with two NYPD detectives set out to find the killer.

The story provides insight into the inner workings of the Museum on Natural History, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Cloisters Museum of Medieval Art. It also paints a picture of the dark side of museum acquisition techniques during the 19th and early 20th Century, when many of the world’s great treasures were looted and wound up in private collections and eventually into museum collections. As an iceberg, so too are museums with ten percent of their holdings on display and another ninety percent stored away in huge vaults. In one such vault, the bone vault, the story comes to its climax. Blair Brown, one of my favorite actresses and one of the better reading voices, read the abridged book.

The bone Vault got us to the Grapevine—the stretch of 5 that takes the traveler out of California’s great Central Valley over the Tehachapi Mountains—just before 5:00 PM. Traffic over the Grapevine was heavy as it was most of the way from the Apricot Treet. But, now it had started to rain and it was heavy in spots. Couple the rain with the spray from the hundreds of cars and multitude of eighteen-wheelers all clustered together and we were lucky to be averaging 50 miles and hour.

Once over the Grapevine, we decided to go around LA traffic by taking Interstate 210 through Pasadena. This provided the first great trauma of the evening. Coming down off a steep grade, we maneuvered over a couple of lanes of traffic and merged into two on-coming lanes of traffic that within a half a mile would become the off-ramp for 210. We made our way across the traffic and just when we began to breathe easy, we hit a low-point in the road coming down a slight grade at 60 miles and hour. The force of the tires hitting the standing water kicking up spray on either side of the car slowed us to 30 miles an hour. I kept the accelerator pressed, foot off the brake to ensure we made it through the puddle and didn’t stall.

From there we traveled the length of 210 in a steady constant downpour making it difficult to see even with the windshield wiper running at top speed. I could barely make out the car several car lengths in front of me. To compound the problem, the sparsely spaced traffic on 210 was traveling at nearly 70 miles an hour. At least on two occasions I watched cars in front of me hit pockets of standing water at high speed and struggle momentarily to gain control.

The downpour continued relentlessly until we reach California 57 southbound. As we merged off 210 on 57, the rain finally began to let up and I was able to cut the wiper speed to slow and pick up speed heading back to 5, which we picked up near Anaheim where 57 surrenders to 5 and California 22. Back on 5, the trip to Dana Point was uneventful and traffic was surprisingly light for a Monday evening at nearly 8:00 PM.

The evening ended with room service hamburgers, a glass of wine, and two chocolate chip cookies courtesy of the Double Tree Doheny Beach.