the UGC: Road Trippin'

Road Trippin'
June 08, 2009

It's not like I hadn't ever been on a road trip, or spent hours upon hours stuck in a car, ambling down the interstate. The major source of my driving to Los Angeles anxiety was that I had never been the driver. Also, I can't ever remember taking I-5 south, even as a passenger. From what I can recall, any of the trips we took in my youth to Southern California almost always involved highway 101, which I was at least a little bit familiar with it. To top it all off, I wasn't going to be driving my car. (Late last year, after realizing his Jetta was unfit to drive, the boyfiance ended up with a Mitsubishi Galant - not a terrible car, it's just so NOT "him" - we've named it Burt.)

So I'm driving to a mostly foreign (to me anyways) place, on an unfamiliar road, in a car that is not my own, and I was the lead car in our little two person caravan. Can you blame me for being a little anxious? At least I had a good co-pilot.

So, the I-5? BOOOORING. But nice and straight, and with a speed limit of 70, which helps make time fly by. Also, it turns out that Burt isn't a bad car to drive. He's a little slow on the uptake, but once he gets going, he keeps on going. Also, leaving Saturday morning turned out to be a fantastic idea traffic wise - we didn't really hit any until we were in L.A. proper.

My co-pilot kept offering to drive to our next stop, but I really didn't mind driving all that much. I did freak out a tiny bit when I had to parallel park on San Vicente Blvd. in front of Barney's with the bikes on the back of the car, but the boyfiance hopped out and helped direct me into the spot, which resulted in one of my best parallel parking efforts ever. I rewarded myself with curly fries.

On Sunday morning, I finally gave in and let someone else drive. This gave me plenty of time to twitter completely pointless things, and also realize that being a passenger? Pretty boring. It's not like I'd never been a passenger on a 3-6 hour drive before (I never drive on trips to Oregon, my cousin or her husband does). Now that I know being the driver isn't so bad, it made being the passenger that much more mundane. Also, the fact that I had spent a large chunk of my weekend in a car probably wasn't helping (I SO wish reading in the car didn't make me sick). Of course, when you're driving, you can't take a nap, so I took full advantage of that.

All in all, I think operation "Pick Up the Boy's Asses in Los Angeles" was a raging success! There were a couple of times when we thought about stopping a the outlets for a few hours, or even turning around and going back home, but I'm glad we didn't. I even convinced everyone we should stop at Sonic on the way home and that, my friends, made the whole thing worth it.

$\"Curtains$ \n\n\nIt's not like I hadn't ever been on a road trip, or spent hours upon hours stuck in a car, ambling down the interstate. The major source of my driving to Los Angeles anxiety was that I had never been the driver. Also, I can't ever remember taking I-5 south, even as a passenger. From what I can recall, any of the trips we took in my youth to Southern California almost always involved highway 101, which I was at least a little bit familiar with it. To top it all off, I wasn't going to be driving my car. (Late last year, after realizing his Jetta was unfit to drive, the boyfiance ended up with a Mitsubishi Galant - not a terrible car, it's just so NOT \"him\" - we've named it Burt.) \n\nSo I'm driving to a mostly foreign (to me anyways) place, on an unfamiliar road, in a car that is not my own, and I was the lead car in our little two person caravan. Can you blame me for being a little anxious? At least I had a good co-pilot.\n\nSo, the I-5? BOOOORING. But nice and straight, and with a speed limit of 70, which helps make time fly by. Also, it turns out that Burt isn't a bad car to drive. He's a little slow on the uptake, but once he gets going, he keeps on going. Also, leaving Saturday morning turned out to be a fantastic idea traffic wise - we didn't really hit any until we were in L.A. proper. \n\nMy co-pilot kept offering to drive to our next stop, but I really didn't mind driving all that much. I did freak out a tiny bit when I had to parallel park on San Vicente Blvd. in front of Barney's with the bikes on the back of the car, but the boyfiance hopped out and helped direct me into the spot, which resulted in one of my best parallel parking efforts ever. I rewarded myself with curly fries.\n\nOn Sunday morning, I finally gave in and let someone else drive. This gave me plenty of time to twitter completely pointless things, and also realize that being a passenger? Pretty boring. It's not like I'd never been a passenger on a 3-6 hour drive before (I never drive on trips to Oregon, my cousin or her husband does). Now that I know being the driver isn't so bad, it made being the passenger that much more mundane. Also, the fact that I had spent a large chunk of my weekend in a car probably wasn't helping (I SO wish reading in the car didn't make me sick). Of course, when you're driving, you can't take a nap, so I took full advantage of that.\n\nAll in all, I think operation \"Pick Up the Boy's Asses in Los Angeles\" was a raging success! There were a couple of times when we thought about stopping a the outlets for a few hours, or even turning around and going back home, but I'm glad we didn't. I even convinced everyone we should stop at Sonic on the way home and that, my friends, made the whole thing worth it.

Follow...