20 Miles, 60 Minutes

We had a fairly uneventful drive home...until we got to the top of the Castaic Grade. We were right on schedule to complete the trip in 7 hours but as we crested the top of the hill and looked out over the downgrade, Castaic, and Santa Clarita beyond, all we could see was brake lights. It took us over an hour to go the next 20 miles. The trip ended up taking 8 1/2 hours. Oh well.

A couple of notes along the way: Traffic going south wasn't too bad. There seemed to be a lot more folks heading the other way, and from my experience last year, tomorrow will be even rougher.

The radio said the I-5 was a parking lot all the way from Los Angeles to Buena Park, so we took the long way around via the 210-57 and we were flying until we got near the Honda Center in Anaheim. Traffic came a halt and there were hundreds of cars trying to get off all the exits that take you to the Honda Center, and as we went by on the freeway we could see that the parking lots were jammed with hundreds more cars on surface streets trying to get in. It was 8pm, the scheduled start of the Celine Dion concert.

I wonder how many people sat in their cars for hours with their expensive tickets in their hands?

In the last week we've made two 1,000 mile round trips, stopping in the same two places for gas a total of four times each. Gas prices really tumbled this last week. Here's what we paid for regular unleaded each time we stopped:

Joe's Travel Plaza, Westley, CA
Sat., 11-22, $1.95
Mon., 11-24, $1.88
Wed., 11-26, $1.84
Sat., 11-29, $1.78

As nice as that drop was, it didn't even compare with the decline in prices at our other stop, the Chevron station in Buttonwillow, CA:

Sat., 11-22, $2.29
Mon., 11-24, $2.19
Wed., 11-26, $2.09
Sat., 11-29, $1.95

At the Buttonwillow exit off the I-5 (intersection of Hwy 58), if you're traveling south once off the exit there's one gas station, a Valero. Valero is normally pretty cheap, but this station, the only one on the west side of the freeway, was charging $2.39 for regular unleaded all week. A lot of people heading south just pulled in there, not knowing that if they simply crossed under the bridge to the east side of the highway they could buy gas for less than $2 at any of about 10 different places.

Valero's got a racket going there.

The other little incident in Buttonwillow occurred at the McDonald's where we usually stop to use the restrooms and grab some food to go. The place was much busier than usual thanks to all the tourist traffic and the women's room was really backed up with a line out the door. According to the Mrs. the restroom has only four stalls, and one had a sign on it "Reserved for Employees Only". The predominantly female McD staff had decided they didn't want to wait in line, so they staked out their own spot and made the poor tourists stand in line. I hope somebody from McDonald's management reads this and makes a note. Bad form.

I should pass on some compliments as well. Our Thanksgiving dinner was largely purchased at the Safeway store in Rohnert Park. They had pre-cooked Turkey breasts plus all the sides and fixings to put together an entire Thanksgiving feast without too much effort. Since we were cooking it in my daughter's dorm room, the easier the better.

I have to compliment the staff at the Safeway. Every single one of them was very helpful and went out of their way, even on a busy Thanksgiving morning, to make sure we had everything we needed. Nice people and a real credit to the service industry.

We get to stay home for a couple of weeks now. We'll be making the trip again in two weeks for a concert, but until then, I'm staying off the highway.