Santa Barbara - L.A.

Dateline: September 15th, 2005

Hey there,

Man, what a trippy ride this little stretch from SB to L.A. turned out to be.

I'd checked the train and bus schedules to L.A. and they were both hours away, so I decided to give the hitchhike method a go. I'd been incredible successful with this in Washington and Oregon, but had yet to try it in California.

Looking back, I almost wish I had waited for the Bus.

According to Mapquest, it is 96 miles distance, drivable in 1 hr 40 minutes roughly. When I set out it was around 2pm….I eventually got there (Los Angeles) well after nightfall. Here is another Tony Tale, in all its detailed glory, coz this story needs to be told like this…

Following the tried and true hitching technique of hitting a highway on-ramp at the edge of town, I wandered 2 to 3 Kay’s along the beachfront boulevard, sweating in the 30 degree heat with my rucksack and daypack on. Finally, I found a spot that looked promising, got out my bit of cardboard and marker pen to scribble my sign.

True to my form of previous experience, I got picked up within about 20 minutes. It’s a beat-up old late-80’s Toyota. A short geeky looking guy with glasses and a whiny voice and a stocky middle-aged black man, named Michael and David respectively, were my new friends. They were going all the way to L.A., more specifically to San Fernando Valley, whereas I needed to get to Santa Monica, but this was close enough I thought.

Two miles down the highway, and Michael has launched into his life-story. Then he suddenly pulls off the highway at the next exit. Turns out Michael is an Attorney-at-Law and was on his way to meet a client, and just needed to stop in his office for 10 minutes 'to pick up some documents', if that was alright with me…who am I to argue. I’m then left with his car while the two of them disappear into an office block….it’s been over 20minutes with no sign of either of them, and I’m contemplating grabbing my stuff and trying my luck on the highway again, only it’s about a mile down the road, it’s stinking hot, and this is potentially a ride 95% of the way to my destination.

David then appears and makes some apologies. Apparently he needed to print out the documents, not just ‘pick them up’, and the printer’s fucked and he doesn’t know how to fix it, and it’s gonna be another 10minutes, and we’ll be on our way. Okay, fair enough. Another 20minutes, then David reappears – with a bottle of water kindly enough – and says “okay, the printers fixed now, 10minutes and we’re honestly outta here’….Mmmm, we’ll see. I seriously wondering about these two guys now – very, very scattered, and one of them is reputedly a lawyer! I’m also wondering whether, if I had’ve stayed on the highway, if I’d have gotten another ride by now.

Right, so now we’re on our way, after our hour long, supposed 10minute, delay. Half an hour into the ride, and I really wished I had passed up on this ride. The lawyer dude Michael is a pure simpleton, while his mate David, who seems to be the smarter of the two, seems to be in total deference to Michael, agreeing with every simpleton remark being made. I’m trying to keep out of the conversation.

Along the way, Michael’s driving is incredibly erratic. He’s skipping up off ramps to side lanes “to try and beat traffic, honestly we’ll save time this way”, attempting short cuts, and is perpetually changing lanes’, braking late, going up the emergency lane to try and overtake. It’s madness. Ordinarily this wouldn’t bother me, but the guy’s sanity, or lack thereof, kinda does.

Next thing I know, Michael is panicking coz the water gauge is rising and is worried about breaking down on the highway. I’m worried about that too. By this point its seriously afternoon peak-hour traffic, and speeds on the freeway have dropped to about 20miles per hour, and we’re still only ½ way there. So we’re having to treat the car very gently now. It stalls. It won’t restart. I ask why, if he’s an L.A. lawyer, is he driving an old beat up vehicle like this one. Apparently his Beamer is in the mechanics, and this is a loaner. He was supposed to have his Beamer back a week ago, but the mechanic still hasn’t finished the work. I suggest he should change mechanics, especially if the loaner car’s he’s giving out are barely roadworthy themselves. He agrees.

Finally the car restarts, and we’re moving, very gingerly, down the highway again. I can see the smog riddled Los Angeles skyline, a pall of filthy transparent brown hovering above the skyscrapers. Then, on one particularly erratic lane change, a Highway Patrol police car is suddenly behind us, with the megaphone advising us to take the next exit off the freeway. We were getting pulled over!!….what now!! This is all I need. Pulling into a service station, the L.A. cop is all very business-like.

“May I see your drivers license and registration, please, sir”
Michael produces the license, but the car’s a loaner remember, and the rego isn’t in the glovebox where it usually is.

“Are you aware that your rear left brake light is not working?” “No, Officer, I was not, this is a loaner from my mechanic”

“Well, what’s your mechanic doing loaning you an un-roadworthy car?”

This whole conversation went on for 5 minutes, and then the cop started grilling David. David, being a black man, has issues with police, and is being very uncooperative, especially regards identifying himself. I’m sitting in the backseat, just wishing they would cooperate so that we could be on our way, but they want to argue every point in fine detail. Because Michael’s a lawyer right, and he knows the law, and what the cop is requesting, they are not legally obliged to give him, frigging nit-picking stuff. And then it was “Do you have any drugs in the vehicle?”, and I’m hoping and praying that they don’t.

The cop had also questioned Michael about me. “He’s a friend of ours from Australia”. As soon as he heard my accent, I was no longer a concern to him – he didn’t even bother to ask for my ID, even though I had my Passport right there. The only time he referred back to me was when I put my hands in my pockets – “KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!” Fine, hands instantly back in my lap.

During this whole altercation, the cop had gone back to radio in the few details that he had eventually extracted from David, and must have requested some back up, coz another patrol car arrived. Cop #1 was back, interrogating David now. “Excuse me Sir, but do you have any further information for me? There are approximately 25 people fitting your name and description with warrants out for their arrest”. Oh Christ, I’m thinking, I’m gonna end up in a freaking police station now.

Eventually, the matter was sorted, and Cop #1 and Cop #2 left the scene. Only now, our car wouldn’t start, again. They filled the radiator, it still wouldn’t start. And so now, they’re amateur mechanics, discussing the fine details of the engine and what the matter was with it, and disagreeing, and arguing!! “It’s the fuel pump” “No, it’s the spark plug”, “Maybe it’s the alternator”. Christ, I’m stuck in the outskirts of L.A. near “The Valley” with a couple of morons, its almost dark, and its taken almost 3 hours to get here when it should’ve have been 2 at the most, and I’m not even anywhere near my end destination.

Once again, eventually, we got the piece of crap car going, and we head for Michael’s meeting point. My original game plan when these dropped me off was that I would get a bus, or two, in order to get to Santa Monica, but that was when I was expecting to arrive well before dark. At this point tho, I’m contemplating a cab, but it’ll cost me minimum US$50 bucks, more money than it would have cost me to get the bus or train in the first place! David then suggests “Seeing as we’ve put you thru all of this drama, we’ll drop to where you need to go, but first Michael has to meet this client to get those documents signed. This'll take 20minutes tops, I promise”.

Fine. At least then I’ll be there, and I’m not having to deal with the L.A. public transport system at night, which I’ve heard can be sketchy. Especially as I’m carrying around my life on my back! So I sit with David at the car, parked a hundred metres down the street, in the middle of some sketchy part of San Fernando Valley watching the sun disappear behind the artificial horizon created by the smog, while Michael disappears into a el-cheapo looking labyrinthine apartment complex and has his meeting with some paranoid Bulgarian guy “who doesn’t like strangers knowing where he lives”. Okaaaaayy.

Once again, car-starting issues arise, but once again, with some coaxing she gets started. More arguments about the best way to get to Santa Monica, what’s the best freeway to take (and god knows there’s scores to choose from in L.A.), and now it’s fully dark, in Friday night peak hour in L.A., and we’re crawling along still in a panic about the radiator and now the fuel gauge is looking scarily low.

Miracle upon all miracles, at around 9pm, fully 7 hours after I left Santa Barbara, I got dropped off in Santa Monica, at the HI Hostel, where I had arranged to meet Mark. Only we’d got our wires crossed, and he’d said Venice Beach!! Problem was that I was without mobile phone service and was using phone cards at public phone booths, and if I didn’t get thru to anyone, all I could do was leave a message, and if anyone wanted to contact me, all they could do was email me. Anyways, a coupla phone calls later, and my buddy Mark arrived to pick me up. I had been invited to a party he was attending that night, but by this stage it was well and truly winding down, so we headed straight back to his apartment, had a beer and called it a night.

That was seriously one of the oddest afternoons of my life. At no point did I feel in any danger, but I think I’m gonna be a little more selective in my rides when I next take up hitchhiking.