One of the things I was hoping to do while in Southern California this week was to drop in on South, a popular Santa Monica eatery owned by Adam, a family friend.
That plan was starting to look sketchy, what with rumors that a ten-mile stretch of the 405 - the major north-south coastal route between L.A. and its southern ’burbs - was going to be shut down for over two days for construction. That two days coincided with the narrow window of time during which I might have effected an escape from my convention-related activities in Orange County. Oy!
So here it is earlier this evening, and we’re hanging with our friends Laura Belle and Don, talking about this and that, when the NBC nightly news puts up a report about the impending freeway closure and the anticipated Traffic Clusterfuck expected to result therefrom. Carmageddon, they’re calling it, with what I hope is typical hyperbole.
“Great,” I say. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to be seeing Adam this trip.”
No sooner have these words left my lips than who should appear on the TV screen but... Adam! I recognized his face before my brain could even decode the caption at the bottom of the screen, a caption that confirmed that I wasn’t imagining things.
Adam, it seems, is using the impending traffic mess as an excuse to create a few new cocktails. Without any way to get anyplace via the freeway, patrons will presumably spend many happy hours drinking themselves into oblivion with custom-blended tipples such as the Gridlock and the Road Rager. Turning lemons into lemonade, I calls it.
I guess I’ll just park my ass in Orange County. Costa Mesa is supposed to be nice this time of year...
Monday, July 11, 2011
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3 comments:
Oh no! What bad timing for your trip!
But, yes, you definitely won't want to try driving anywhere. I'm planning on not even touching my car, starting on Thursday (even though they are not going to start shutting down the 405 til 7pm Friday). I work as a private chauffeur, and I turned down all work for those days. Traffic is crazy enough here as it is. But to try to get around with the freeway closed? Carmaggedon, indeed!
One of my earliest impressions of California traffic came from a 1970's Doonesbury cartoon where a guy in LA told his girlfriend he was going to get a bag of Fritos. "It's just down the freeway. I'll be back in a couple of days!"
Hey El,
I know it's off-topic, but it looks like you may've started a trend.
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