The LONG Drive North

This year I drove north for the holidays. I was originally anticipating a New Year in the mountains with some friends from the Midwest but that sadly fell through. Since I truly feel that Christmas Eve is a vital part of the Christmas Holiday (family meals, church services - yes I like to attend 2, and last minute shopping)I hit the road right after work on the 23rd. Big mistake. BIG mistake. I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it would be painful. I had no idea how bad it would really be.

I hit the normal get out of LA traffic. Locals know what I mean.

• 405 North as you go under the 10
• Coming down the Sepulveda Pass
• Merging of the 405 and 5 and 210 and 14)

What I didn't expect was the HOUR it took me to travel from Santa Clarita to Magic Mountain. A distance of a few miles. I almost lost it. I hadn't even hit the grapevine and I'd been on the road 3 1/2 hours. 3 1/2 hours and not even at the Grapevine!!!!!

The reason you ask? Cal Trans - the lovely organization - had closed 2 lanes for construction. At 9PM on December 23rd they had 2 of 4 lanes closed. My parents are government workers, good government workers. Whoever planned this falls into the evil stereotype.

So I wrote Cal Trans a letter:

To Whom It May Conern:

Tuesday December 23, 2008 I drove from Los Angeles to Sacramento via I-5. Overall the drive out of Los Angeles was quite difficult with the large quantities of traffic (especially where the 405 and I-5 meet). All of this was to be expected but what was not expected was the 2 lane closure in Santa Clarita.

It was probably the worst timing for multiple lane closures, maybe the day before Thanksgiving would be worse but I'm unclear as to why CalTrans would select such a high traffic period to close so many of the lanes.

I would like to request that in the future, during high traffic periods, you not close multiple lanes. It would have cut my long trip by at least an hour if CalTrans had scheduled the construction at a better time. I'm sure most of my fellow travelers felt the same way.

Thank you,
Sarah Lyman

After that I started rolling, or flying. Liz Criswell-Driessen very kindly lent me 2 books on tape. I listened to the Tom Wolfe (or something like that) one on the way up. For about an hour I listened to the most horrificly graphic description of how they mate horses. I mean GRAPHIC and I'm not kidding that it was an hour. It definitely helped pass the time but I'm still scarred.

I made it home around 2AM and was very very happy to have made it through the traffic, the horse mating, the car dancing (yes alone but I still grooved to the music) and the rain.