Yesterday we prepped our trailer for travel so we could get out of Rancho Oso near Solvang early today. We thought an early departure would help our travel plans by speeding our way through the dreadful Los Angeles traffic on our way south.
We don’t know if it actually did us any good. Traffic was okay on the back roads but the volume of cars increased dramatically once we got onto US-101. The number of cars, and the corresponding increase number of lunatic drivers, multiplied as we continued south. By the time we made it into the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, traffic had stopped entirely. In Woodland Hills, we had to get off for fuel but we chose a terrible place because the gas station, which appeared to be right next to the freeway on the map, turned out to be deep into the maze of the city requiring considerable cursing and brake applications for maniac drivers. We finally made it back onto the freeway and crept along like a ten ton inchworm for miles until exiting 101 and heading south on the I-405. Traffic was even worse on the 405. Many foolish drivers, actually believing they were making wise decisions, held up progress by changing lanes many times in very short distances. It was shitty. Many hours later, we passed to I-605 and traffic actually started to flow in such a way that the needle on our speedometer lifted off the zero peg.
Leaving Los Angeles County took us into Orange County and the traffic was moving along at almost the speed limit. However, in San Clemente, rubbernecks became fascinated with some flashing lights on the other side of the freeway and that stopped and backed up traffic for about 6 miles. More creeping along ensued until we passed the pretty lights. We whistled through Camp Pendleton and were not required to stop for another blockage until we got to Oceanside. The San Diego drivers must not be as interested in nothing as Orange County drivers because the backup only lasted for 5 miles before we broke out into a few miles of freeway speed. Unfortunately, the Breeder’s Cup was being run at the Del Mar Racetrack and that again snafued traffic for a while. South of the track we were able to drive all the way to Pio Pico TT southeast of San Diego where we pulled in but found we would be camping in that part of the campground with no sewer hookup. We were pooped so we pulled into a pull-through and set up and figured we could deal with the sewer later. We covered around 280 miles today which is a long run for us old people.