California or Bust *People Notes*

We were excited to learn on a Monday that the next (travel nurse) contract was going to be in Los Angeles, CA - somewhat less excited to learn that we needed to be in Los Angeles by the end of that week. After several attempts at programming the Garmin GPS and comparing it to google maps and the atlas and the wall map...indeed, the fastest route from Sevierville to Los Angeles was going to involve driving 2,250 miles. Over 2,000 of those miles would be spent heading west on I-40. Yay.

Following is a complete list of all of the fascinating people, places, things we saw on our trek across the U.S. Yes...I said 'complete'.


Tennessee:

Apparently the secret to building the great pyramids has been unlocked by the friendly folks in Memphis. Who knew?! And the Mississippi River is always cool. OK, that's it for Tennessee.



Arkansas:

Hmmm - looks like we are about to become 'those people' who stop and take pictures of every state sign like we have never been out of our neighborhood before. The (only) other interesting thing in Arkansas was a place called Toad Suck Park...I thought about that for many, many miles and can't come up with any good reason for naming a park 'Toad Suck'.



Oklahoma:

Wins the award for the two worst signs on the entire trip - found hundreds of miles apart from each other. #1) Restrooms closed for remodeling. #2) Women's restroom closed. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? I may have to circumvent Oklahoma on all future trips across the country.




Texas:

Now, those are just friendly folks there in Texas!




New Mexico:

I pondered the spelling and pronunciation of Albuquerque for most of this passage. That was about it for NM.




Arizona:

This was the first signage for Los Angeles - comforting to know we were headed in the right direction after all.



California:

This is where the trip got bad. Our nine year old Xterra was feeling the strain of pulling a loaded cargo trailer across the entire country - through the Smoky Mountains, across the great plains, through the panhandle, across the Rocky Mountains, through the desert...but when we arrived in California (literally - at the state line) the trusted Xterra needed a break. At least that is how we interpreted that little gauge that was reading H - assuming that meant HOT!!! Indeed, it was hot. Flip-flop-melting-on-the-asphalt hot. One-hundred-twenty-two-degrees-in-the-shade hot. Twelve miles to the next town, middle of the afternoon, looking at crossing the Mojave Desert...not going to happen. We limped into Needles, CA, and holed up in an air conditioned hotel room while waiting for the sun to go down and the air to cool. At 2:00am we headed across the Mojave and it was STILL hot! But at least the sun was gone.



And now we are here! Arrived in LA around 7:30am on Saturday, drove to our 'hood, found our apartment building...parked the car & trailer, got keys, apartment looked fantastic, returned to car & trailer to unload and yes, we had our first parking tickets! Not ticket - tickets - plural! Same thing happened last summer in Colorado - is it something about Tennessee license tags? Maybe the 'Clampet' look and rocking chair strapped on the roof attracts attention? I don't get it. Guess California really does need the revenue!

We are in Central LA and it appears that we have a lot of exploring ahead of us. We are due west of downtown with Hollywood and Beverly Hills on the other sides of our 'hood! The hospital - USC University Hospital - is on the opposite side of downtown, so the commute will be interesting for Paul. He has already learned to refer to highways as 'the...101, the...10' etc. and we are both starting to use 'dude' in our daily vocabulary. Yea - we are definitely NOT going to be the cool kids on the block. We are decidedly the oldest people in our neighborhood, and likely the straightest. Odie is the only dog in the area that uses a 'flexi-leash' and harness as opposed to a designer leash/collar combo with rhinestones. And he doesn't wear clothes. And he has bad hair - always. However, that has not deterred his ambition to take advantage of this great opportunity to be discovered and become the next Rin-Tin-Tin or a stunt double for Toto. Dream big little dog, dream big.

Looking forward to some grand adventures here! There will certainly be plenty of places to go, things to do and people to see. Hope many of you can come visit us while we are here. Happy Trails!