Highway Chronicles, vol I: Chain Reaction
It's been a crazy, crazy 24 hours.
It began with food, fun and debauchery in Hollywood and ended near the site of what's looking to be one of the worst highway disasters in history. If you've heard the big news stories this weekend, you've probably already heard about the latter incident.
If you'd like to hear this story in it's complete and utterly bizarre form, read what's under the cut as a preface to what appears after it. Otherwise just skip ahead to that bit about the highway.
We were in LA yesterday for the sixth annual Lebowski Fest which was being kicked of with a screening of The Big Lebowski at the Knitting Factory. After running some afternoon errands, Jessica and I headed down to the touristy, SoCal glitz of the Grauman's Chinese area in Hollywood for some dinner before heading to our ultimate destination. Next thing I know we each have a belly full of shabu shabu (Japanese fondue) and sake and we're standing on the observation deck of the mall next to Grauman's, smoking gourmet herb and peering down upon the street performers and crowds lining Hollywood Ave four stories below us. Already I could tell it was going to be a special night.
After descending to the sidewalk to hear a band of kids called The Hawks playing "Sweet Home Alabama", "Hotel California", and "Sweet Child 'O Mine" better than 99.9% of the people twice their age, we became briefly derailed by some misunderstandings and bad noise before wandering into a run-of-the-mill steak house and ordering more alcohol. Some screwdrivers, Basil Hayden's bourbon on the rocks and calamari followed while we killed time waiting for the Knitting Factory to open its doors.
Things get a little fuzzy here which, I suppose, is fitting considering the whirlwind of alcohol and weed that typically envelopes people who are about to immerse themselves in the genius world of The Dude and the Big Lebowski. A seemingly endless series of Jack & Cokes alternated with White Russians (and a Jameson & Coke for some reason) were consumed and one-hits were done out of view of security while we waited for the screening to begin. Unbeknownst to us, however, the doors opened at 8pm for a three hour pre-party before the movie went on at 11:30. Not surprisingly, we were completely fucking wasted by that point. But so was everyone else -- including the crazy old lady in the bowling shirt who grabbed Jessica's butt and her guy friend who looked EXACTLY like Jeff Bridges in the role of Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski. Surreality abounded.
We didn't make it until the end of the movie though and, instead, stumbled out of the Knitting Factory sometime after midnight and ended up passing out in the car until one of us sobered up. I woke up first and, after a walk around the parking garage and a run-down of my mental inventory, I hopped into the driver's seat and headed back to the freeway.
The freeway. This is where everything went completely fucking sideways.
It had rained for the first time in many weeks while we were inside the Knitting Factory and continued to rain profusely as I set out down Hollywood Ave towards the 101. At first things went decently and I managed to stay focused and make my way through the LA freeway system while Jessica continued to nap. Eventually I got onto the 5 freeway which is one of the most integral roadways for getting around in the Greater Los Angeles area. For frame of reference (which you'll appreciate shortly), not was the 5 my route to take us to the 14 (the highway that runs through the Mojave Desert where we live), but it runs from Mexico to Canada and is probably the largest and most heavily traveled road west of the Mississippi.
Everything was cool until, after driving a piece on the 5, I saw a warning on the message board that read "ACCIDENT AT 5 AND 14 INTERSECTION, HIGHWAY CLOSED AT ROXFORD." Shit. I didn't know how else to cross the San Gabriel Mountains and get into the Mojave without getting onto the 14 where it intersects with the 5. And I didn't want to wake Jessica up until we get home if I could avoid it. I'm kind of familiar with the Roxford exit though and instead of getting off the highway I decided to continue to there, navigate the surface streets onto the 14, and then escape the LA highway insanity into the mountains and the desert beyond.
STUPIDEST FUCKING IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
The 5 basically turned into a parking lot. We probably averaged 1 mph on those occasions in which we actually moved. It took me OVER THREE HOURS to go from San Fernando Mission to Roxford! (If you click that link you'll see that that's only a couple miles and is normally a two minute trip!)
During this painful wait Jessica eventually woke up briefly and wisely instructed me to turn on the local news radio station. Within moments it became clear that we had accidentally become entangled in a highway disaster of epic proportions. No less than fifteen 18-wheeler trucks had been involved in a pile-up in the 5's southbound truck tunnel near the 5 & 14 interchange and the whole thing was on fire.
You could smell chaos in the air. It was more than the faint odor of incineration wafting in from the distance. It was the disturbing ambience of confusion and sleepiness mingling with the ever-present glare of headlights and brake lights, all wrapped together by the mind-numbing stop-and-go rhythm of the traffic. The highway median and shoulder were littered with cars containing drivers incapacitated either by lack of sleep or lack of gasoline. Some truckers simply gave off and shut their rigs down right in the middle of the freeway. Car passengers frequently got out wander around or relieve themselves or simply just stare at anything other than the virtual still life painting they'd been seeing in their windshields. Modern civilization was grinding to a halt all around us.
The situation grew worse. The strobing lights of emergency vehicles trapped behind us moved forward at only a crawling pace. Various grim news stories came across the radio.
At least one person was unaccounted for and likely dead. There were no water lines near the massive interchange and water trucks were having a hard time getting to the scene. Wreckage was reported to be strewn across half a mile. Flames were still pouring out of the tunnel mouth. An LA county official informed us that the tunnel had also likely sustained enough damage to render it structurally unstable. A reporter reminded us that the automobile lanes of the 5 run over top of the tunnel thus increasing the severity of the situation.
Somehow I maintained. I sank in and then back out of a moderate hangover. I did my best to wrangle the stick shift (despite not having driven a stick shift in highway traffic since high school). And I managed to minimize my disturbance of sleeping Jessica in hopes of still getting home before she could fully wake up. Well, until dawn when I finally got to Roxford and began to seek out another way into the San Gabriel Mountain pass that led to the Mojave. At that point I began to really struggle with the stick shift in the foothills which in turn annoyed the hell out of Jessica which all turned my post-hangover stomach into a volatile vat of bile and acid.
Around 7am -- six hours into a journey that normally takes about 10 minutes -- I finally found my way around the disaster. Only a couple roads lead in and out of the mountain pass and, aside from the 14, they're all small, infrequently used and indistinguishable from any other street to non-local like me. After studying a map that lacked detail for this particularly anonymous part of town, I decided Foothill Blvd was my way out. And I was right.
In addition to traveling Foothill Blvd being a success, it also brought me back within a very close distance to the 5 freeway. The flames from the tunnel -- which were still burning -- were not visible from my angle, but smoke chugged from a spot out of sight amidst the concrete structure of the interchange. A sparkling menagerie of emergency and city vehicles were parked haphazardly on the highway lanes near the disaster area. There was a small fleet of what initially appeared to be gas trucks parked precariously close to the smoke, but what turned out to be the tankers that imported water for the firefighters.
Before long we were on the highway and limped home to the desert in a daze. I think we finally got to sleep at around 9am.
It began with food, fun and debauchery in Hollywood and ended near the site of what's looking to be one of the worst highway disasters in history. If you've heard the big news stories this weekend, you've probably already heard about the latter incident.
If you'd like to hear this story in it's complete and utterly bizarre form, read what's under the cut as a preface to what appears after it. Otherwise just skip ahead to that bit about the highway.
We were in LA yesterday for the sixth annual Lebowski Fest which was being kicked of with a screening of The Big Lebowski at the Knitting Factory. After running some afternoon errands, Jessica and I headed down to the touristy, SoCal glitz of the Grauman's Chinese area in Hollywood for some dinner before heading to our ultimate destination. Next thing I know we each have a belly full of shabu shabu (Japanese fondue) and sake and we're standing on the observation deck of the mall next to Grauman's, smoking gourmet herb and peering down upon the street performers and crowds lining Hollywood Ave four stories below us. Already I could tell it was going to be a special night.
After descending to the sidewalk to hear a band of kids called The Hawks playing "Sweet Home Alabama", "Hotel California", and "Sweet Child 'O Mine" better than 99.9% of the people twice their age, we became briefly derailed by some misunderstandings and bad noise before wandering into a run-of-the-mill steak house and ordering more alcohol. Some screwdrivers, Basil Hayden's bourbon on the rocks and calamari followed while we killed time waiting for the Knitting Factory to open its doors.
Things get a little fuzzy here which, I suppose, is fitting considering the whirlwind of alcohol and weed that typically envelopes people who are about to immerse themselves in the genius world of The Dude and the Big Lebowski. A seemingly endless series of Jack & Cokes alternated with White Russians (and a Jameson & Coke for some reason) were consumed and one-hits were done out of view of security while we waited for the screening to begin. Unbeknownst to us, however, the doors opened at 8pm for a three hour pre-party before the movie went on at 11:30. Not surprisingly, we were completely fucking wasted by that point. But so was everyone else -- including the crazy old lady in the bowling shirt who grabbed Jessica's butt and her guy friend who looked EXACTLY like Jeff Bridges in the role of Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski. Surreality abounded.
We didn't make it until the end of the movie though and, instead, stumbled out of the Knitting Factory sometime after midnight and ended up passing out in the car until one of us sobered up. I woke up first and, after a walk around the parking garage and a run-down of my mental inventory, I hopped into the driver's seat and headed back to the freeway.
The freeway. This is where everything went completely fucking sideways.
It had rained for the first time in many weeks while we were inside the Knitting Factory and continued to rain profusely as I set out down Hollywood Ave towards the 101. At first things went decently and I managed to stay focused and make my way through the LA freeway system while Jessica continued to nap. Eventually I got onto the 5 freeway which is one of the most integral roadways for getting around in the Greater Los Angeles area. For frame of reference (which you'll appreciate shortly), not was the 5 my route to take us to the 14 (the highway that runs through the Mojave Desert where we live), but it runs from Mexico to Canada and is probably the largest and most heavily traveled road west of the Mississippi.
Everything was cool until, after driving a piece on the 5, I saw a warning on the message board that read "ACCIDENT AT 5 AND 14 INTERSECTION, HIGHWAY CLOSED AT ROXFORD." Shit. I didn't know how else to cross the San Gabriel Mountains and get into the Mojave without getting onto the 14 where it intersects with the 5. And I didn't want to wake Jessica up until we get home if I could avoid it. I'm kind of familiar with the Roxford exit though and instead of getting off the highway I decided to continue to there, navigate the surface streets onto the 14, and then escape the LA highway insanity into the mountains and the desert beyond.
STUPIDEST FUCKING IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
The 5 basically turned into a parking lot. We probably averaged 1 mph on those occasions in which we actually moved. It took me OVER THREE HOURS to go from San Fernando Mission to Roxford! (If you click that link you'll see that that's only a couple miles and is normally a two minute trip!)
During this painful wait Jessica eventually woke up briefly and wisely instructed me to turn on the local news radio station. Within moments it became clear that we had accidentally become entangled in a highway disaster of epic proportions. No less than fifteen 18-wheeler trucks had been involved in a pile-up in the 5's southbound truck tunnel near the 5 & 14 interchange and the whole thing was on fire.
You could smell chaos in the air. It was more than the faint odor of incineration wafting in from the distance. It was the disturbing ambience of confusion and sleepiness mingling with the ever-present glare of headlights and brake lights, all wrapped together by the mind-numbing stop-and-go rhythm of the traffic. The highway median and shoulder were littered with cars containing drivers incapacitated either by lack of sleep or lack of gasoline. Some truckers simply gave off and shut their rigs down right in the middle of the freeway. Car passengers frequently got out wander around or relieve themselves or simply just stare at anything other than the virtual still life painting they'd been seeing in their windshields. Modern civilization was grinding to a halt all around us.
The situation grew worse. The strobing lights of emergency vehicles trapped behind us moved forward at only a crawling pace. Various grim news stories came across the radio.
At least one person was unaccounted for and likely dead. There were no water lines near the massive interchange and water trucks were having a hard time getting to the scene. Wreckage was reported to be strewn across half a mile. Flames were still pouring out of the tunnel mouth. An LA county official informed us that the tunnel had also likely sustained enough damage to render it structurally unstable. A reporter reminded us that the automobile lanes of the 5 run over top of the tunnel thus increasing the severity of the situation.
Somehow I maintained. I sank in and then back out of a moderate hangover. I did my best to wrangle the stick shift (despite not having driven a stick shift in highway traffic since high school). And I managed to minimize my disturbance of sleeping Jessica in hopes of still getting home before she could fully wake up. Well, until dawn when I finally got to Roxford and began to seek out another way into the San Gabriel Mountain pass that led to the Mojave. At that point I began to really struggle with the stick shift in the foothills which in turn annoyed the hell out of Jessica which all turned my post-hangover stomach into a volatile vat of bile and acid.
Around 7am -- six hours into a journey that normally takes about 10 minutes -- I finally found my way around the disaster. Only a couple roads lead in and out of the mountain pass and, aside from the 14, they're all small, infrequently used and indistinguishable from any other street to non-local like me. After studying a map that lacked detail for this particularly anonymous part of town, I decided Foothill Blvd was my way out. And I was right.
In addition to traveling Foothill Blvd being a success, it also brought me back within a very close distance to the 5 freeway. The flames from the tunnel -- which were still burning -- were not visible from my angle, but smoke chugged from a spot out of sight amidst the concrete structure of the interchange. A sparkling menagerie of emergency and city vehicles were parked haphazardly on the highway lanes near the disaster area. There was a small fleet of what initially appeared to be gas trucks parked precariously close to the smoke, but what turned out to be the tankers that imported water for the firefighters.
Before long we were on the highway and limped home to the desert in a daze. I think we finally got to sleep at around 9am.