On the Road to Anza

Our post names can sometimes sound like old Bob Hope Bing Crosby films. This week it is "The Road to Anza". Since Anza is 10 hours away form our home base we had to drive down today or else wake up at 2am tomorrow morning and drive down. Since we have a late drive back Saturday on into Sunday we decided the 2AM thing was out! So we left a the leisurely time of 10AM this morning on a slow drive down. I wanted to time things so we would miss the majority of LA area traffic. And for the most part we missed it. There were only a couple of bottle necks but it flowed pretty nicely.

I wish I could say the drive down was and adventure....or maybe I really don't because adventures often turn into expenses or headaches. So the drive was just slow and tedious. California has a really dumb law where big trucks and cars pulling trailers drive at 55 and all others at 65 or more. I call it dumb because those of us forced to drive slower end up holding up the cars that can legally go faster and create traffic wolf packs. It really ticks some folks off that we slower vehicles (by law) are following the law and we are rewarded by those other drives with the "California Howdy" in the form of a birdy or middle finger salute, sometimes coming with a horn honk. After traveling so many states where there are no such laws it is tough to keep the van down to 55. So I set the cruise control and in my head heard elevator music the entire drive. We saw 23 cops today!

One of the delights of driving long drives are some of the talk show hosts I get to listen to on the radio. In Southern Cal Tim Conway's (from the Carrol Burnett Days) son Tim Conway Jr. has a talk show with a ton of humor, political satire and games. One game he has is "What the hell did Jesse Jackson Say". He plays a clip of something Jesse Jackson said in a speech and callers call in and try to figure out what was said. It's hilarious. His regular Schtick was interrupted by a high speed chase going through the LA area and as required by social law down here each twist and turn is described by every TV and radio station. Tim's callers even have fun with the chase and the game melding the two. One guy called in and pretending he was the guy in the white car that was being chased said, "Can you repeat the clip, I couldn't hear it over the sound of the sirens behind me." The next caller pretended to be a cop chasing the guy saying he had turned down the siren so he could hear the clip and guess what Jesse had said. Great laughs! The thing is there are so many car chases down here that people make great sport of them. Last time we were down this way we watched one on TV. It's amazing how mesmerizing they can be.
Our client booked us at a hotel a little lower than the standards our contract states. To top it off the clerk wanted me to pay for it in spite of having the credit card info of the client. I had to turn on the tough guy routine and all went the way it was supposed to after that. I got the rooms I needed and little clerk didn't get to see my real tough guy character....that's when I beg and plead nearly in tears.