The Car is Ours! Now the Long Road Home...
Well, it took a trip of 500 miles, and some unexpected waiting at the last moment (the car needed a repair hours before we bought it... maybe we should have bought that extended warranty! 😅), but by mid-afternoon Saturday the car was ours!
Next would come the other 500 mile trip: the drive home!
The Long Road Home
Our first decision about driving home was which route to take. The fastest route, mostly Interstate 5, would be dull. A diversion to US 101 would be slower but more scenic. A diversion to Highway 1 then US 101 would even slower but way more scenic. Included in our options was splitting the driving overnight. We'd actually packed a smaller overnight bag with changes of clothes just in case! Ultimately we decided, Let's just get home, and took the shortest, dullest route.
The drive turned out to be anything but short. We hit various traffic slowdowns driving through Orange County and into the Los Angeles basin. Compounding the problem seemed to be the car's navigation system, which includes real-time traffic and route planning. It started suggesting time-saving detours. We branched off Interstate 5 onto Highway 1 and then crossed back via local streets. We branched off again on highways 605, 710, 105, 22, 128... I lost count, frankly... and saw many more recommendations that we take city street detours. Most of the detours were ruinous. It seemed like everyone was getting the same recommendations from their nav systems and jamming whichever road we turned onto.
We left Encinitas at about 3:30. It wasn't until after 7 that we left the LA basin, climbing the pass toward Santa Clarita. Route mapping showed none of those delays before we started. The first 2 hours of the trip had already telescoped to 3½. Thankfully that was it. Traffic flowed freely after that. And there were no more crazy detour recommendations for which we had to ponder, "Is this really a time-saver, or does the computer just think it's a time-saver because it thinks city streets have zero traffic?"
Hot, Hot, Hot!
Saturday was another day of high temperatures across much of California. It was nice along the very souther coast, in San Diego and Encinitas, with highs in the low 80s. OC and LA were warmer, around 90. In the Central Valley is where it was really blazing. The forecast high was over 110° there.
We drove through the Central Valley with the top up and the AC on. Thanks to traffic earlier it was already after sunset when we entered the heat zone. That took the edge off the heat... though it was still oppressive. When we stopped for gas at 9:40pm the temperature was still 100° F (38° C)... and the whole place smelled like a toilet. A stinky, overheated toilet. 🥵
We piled back into the car after a brief leg-stretch and hammered through the last 2½ hours of driving. We pulled into our garage at about 12:20am. That was an hour and a half later than I hoped, but at least we were home and sleeping in our own bed for the night so we could do other things on Sunday.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/87467.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]
Next would come the other 500 mile trip: the drive home!
The Long Road Home
Our first decision about driving home was which route to take. The fastest route, mostly Interstate 5, would be dull. A diversion to US 101 would be slower but more scenic. A diversion to Highway 1 then US 101 would even slower but way more scenic. Included in our options was splitting the driving overnight. We'd actually packed a smaller overnight bag with changes of clothes just in case! Ultimately we decided, Let's just get home, and took the shortest, dullest route.
The drive turned out to be anything but short. We hit various traffic slowdowns driving through Orange County and into the Los Angeles basin. Compounding the problem seemed to be the car's navigation system, which includes real-time traffic and route planning. It started suggesting time-saving detours. We branched off Interstate 5 onto Highway 1 and then crossed back via local streets. We branched off again on highways 605, 710, 105, 22, 128... I lost count, frankly... and saw many more recommendations that we take city street detours. Most of the detours were ruinous. It seemed like everyone was getting the same recommendations from their nav systems and jamming whichever road we turned onto.
We left Encinitas at about 3:30. It wasn't until after 7 that we left the LA basin, climbing the pass toward Santa Clarita. Route mapping showed none of those delays before we started. The first 2 hours of the trip had already telescoped to 3½. Thankfully that was it. Traffic flowed freely after that. And there were no more crazy detour recommendations for which we had to ponder, "Is this really a time-saver, or does the computer just think it's a time-saver because it thinks city streets have zero traffic?"
Hot, Hot, Hot!
Saturday was another day of high temperatures across much of California. It was nice along the very souther coast, in San Diego and Encinitas, with highs in the low 80s. OC and LA were warmer, around 90. In the Central Valley is where it was really blazing. The forecast high was over 110° there.
We drove through the Central Valley with the top up and the AC on. Thanks to traffic earlier it was already after sunset when we entered the heat zone. That took the edge off the heat... though it was still oppressive. When we stopped for gas at 9:40pm the temperature was still 100° F (38° C)... and the whole place smelled like a toilet. A stinky, overheated toilet. 🥵
We piled back into the car after a brief leg-stretch and hammered through the last 2½ hours of driving. We pulled into our garage at about 12:20am. That was an hour and a half later than I hoped, but at least we were home and sleeping in our own bed for the night so we could do other things on Sunday.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/87467.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]