28 Days to LA: Day 17
Really it's Day 16 to me, but strictly speaking it is after midnight, so very early on the 27th.
I'm in the air now, flying with Tara on our 5 day vacation to California. The last couple of days have been a whirlwind of working mornings for StomperNet as they prepare for the latest big launch on 9/9/9, and the afternoons/evenings continuing work on the house renovations. We literally filled a 30 cubic-yard 5 ton dumpster this week with "stuff" from the house, including a collection of useful lumber that kills me to throw away but I just can't pay someone to ship wood scraps 3000 miles.
The bathrooms are complete, and beautiful. Big smiles on the womenfolk around here :) I never got a chance to take pics before we had to pack around 4:15pm today, before driving to Maisy's softball game at 5, followed by a quick bite and a dash to the airport at 8. Thunderstorms delayed the takeoff, but I've never been so glad to pay the $60 upgrade and be sitting in business class right now...typing live at 30,000 feet courtesy of a trial of AirTran's new gogo internet that I was offered in the terminal. Pretty damn amazing, inflight wifi it is.
I don't know if I've mentioned this vacation before. It's a complete coincidence that we're flying to CA right now, considering that I'm starting work there in less than two weeks time. It's Tara's birthday treat, but everyone agrees it's pretty weird that this happened right now.
We made one change to our plans - we still fly into San Francisco but now we fly out of LA - so instead of driving north to Sausalito and onto Napa Valley we decided of course to drive down south so we could both check out our soon-to-be new home town.
We left the kids with the grand-parents, so this is high heaven for us. A rare treat to get away and completely relax - and with the next months having the potential to be pretty stressful at times this will be a great little "breather". It'll also give Tara first-hand experience of the area and a picture in her mind to aim at.
Btw, I bought a webcam for Tara's computer for her birthday too, so that'll allow us to have more fun conversations every day after work when I call home to speak to the kids.
I did a little preparation for my marathon drive too. My poor 64 Catalina has no idea that it will be driving me 2,286 miles across country. But I bought her some treats last night. New fan belts, new top and bottom radiator hoses, new spark plugs, new oil filters (they are quite hard to find in oil change shops, so I carry my own). These are all spares of course, to be used in case of emergency one lonely dark night on I-20W.
How long will it take me to drive 2,286 miles? Take a guess. Google Maps cryptically says 1 day and 9 hours which I assume means (really) 33 hours, which is an average of 69.27 mph. That seems to me quite a high average? I mean, stopping for gas and food and just to straighten my legs every few hours I know that kills average speed.
I haven't thought this through much at all, but I'm assuming I'll aim for Dallas, TX on Day 1. I've driven that twice and it takes around 13-14 hours. Tucson, AZ is about the same distance according to Google for Day 2, leaving a leisurely 8 hour drive into LA on Day 3.
Anyone done this?
Day 3 is of course Saturday Sept 5th, the day of the Primer Nationals in Ventura. Hopefully I can get a good sleep and still make the show on Sunday and meet up with some other HAMBers.
Back to our vacation first though. we'll land in SF in a few hours and grab a car and hotel near the airport for a few zzz's. Tomorrow we'll hit Monterey for some well-deserved R & R!!