Two Hokies and a Poodle

Friday, July 11, 2008

Day 9 – 180 miles

Palm Springs is a beautiful town, with the impressive shadow of peaks always in view. In the Winter and Spring, the wealthy from Hollywood come here to gamble, golf, or take the tramway up the mountains as featured on the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs.” We left our contemporary resort hotel for a peaceful drive through wind farms.These were even more numerous than in Oklahoma, and I’m sure powered the resorts and water parks in the region, so were quite essential. We had hoped to find a good spot on the San Andreas Fault to take some pictures, which is apparently easily defined in this region, but were unable to find it. There was an earthquake survival guide in the hotel, which made me feel very reassured.After a peaceful drive, the monstrosity that is LA reached out to grab us as for the first time since leaving Hampton Roads, traffic snarled us up. On the outskirts of LA we hit merging traffic, and sped south. We entered San Diego County quite a long time before reaching the city. This county is gigantic in land area. I decided that all of California thinks they are in a movie, as we saw 4 Hollywood quality car wrecks in the span of half an hour.One car was completely engulfed in flames while another spun out behind us managing to miss all oncoming traffic in the process. While accidents seem common-place, I was impressed with the merging qualities other drivers possess. In the VA, people approach merging with extreme fear and trepidation. Here, they just zip in and keeps the flow moving. In San Diego city, entrance ramps have stop lights to regulate the flow in incoming merging vehicles, so this idea of effective merging somehow communicates to the masses how to get around.After some lunch, we finally headed into San Diego proper and took a quick tour of what Ron Burgundy has termed, “it’s a fact, this is the greatest city in the history of mankind.” If nothing else, the climate here is really as great as advertised, particularly after the insanely hot desert and humidity filled homeland back in Old Virginny.

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