The Crazy Trip 1

LA-Vegas, Thanksgiving 2008...

Monday, 24th of Nov, 2008, I returned to US in the afternoon after a hectic trip to India, and hit straight to office. Just 2 more working days and then we have the 4 day long thanks giving weekend!!!! But I have no plans, as I was not sure if I will be back in US for this weekend or not. Wednesday evening, I came back from work around 7. The holidays have begun, I have no plans and now I am wondering what to do!!!! Before I went to India, Phalgun (who was in Houston those days) had called up and told about his LA-Vegas trip for the holidays and had asked me to join. But at that time I had refused, as I was not sure. At 7.15 PM I give him a call. These guys already in LA and partying around. He says "Aaja be..." and I say "OK. I will be on my way soon."

So this is how this crazy trip started!!! At 7.30 PM I left my home in Santa Clara in my Mustang and headed alone to LA, some 350 miles away. Hardly 40 miles towards my destination for the day, as soon as I crossed Gilroy and took CA-152E, the road that links Highway 101 to I-5, there is a traffic jam!!!! Although it is quite late for the weekly traffic on this route, but its the holiday rush which is causing the jam. The vehicles are crawling on the road and it took me almost 2 hrs to cover this 40 mile stretch before merging onto I-5. Once on I-5, the rest of the journey was smooth, I managed to reach the hotel just before 3.

The next day was spent on the beaches of LA and just driving on the roads of LA without any specific thing in mind. In the night we decided to hit a pub, but the day being the eve of Thanks Giving, most of the places were closed :( Finally we found one on Sunset Boulevard. The place looked a bit weird, but we were all too desparate to get drunk to bother. At the entrance, the bouncers told us that this is a 'Gothic' club, but still none of us got it!!!! As soon as we entered, we were all shocked!!! Its the weirdest place I have ever been to, the weirdest people with the weirdest hairstyles and make up!!!!! (I guess the others there considered us the weirdest people out there, as we standing out in our 'normal' clothing!!!) Anyways we had a couple of drinks, struggling to see each other and our drinks in that exceptionally dark place and headed back to the hotel.

The next day, Friday was the time to leave LA and head towards Vegas :) Left around 10 and drove as close as possible to the famous 'Hollywood' sign. then stopped at some vista points and people tried their hands on the camera to do some tricks with the Hollywood sign. Just before hitting I-15, we again get a bad traffic jam!!! But this time I was not alone and we were 4 of us in the car, so time passed relatively easily. Finally around 6 in the evening, we are in Vegas, The Sin City :P The next ~40 hours in Vegas were crazy!!! They were filled with lots of drinking, lots of loosing money, shows, clubbing, much more drinking, more gambling (read "loosing money"), roller coaster ride in New York New York and crazy rides on the 70th floor of Stratosphere.

In Vegas, you just need 2 things: Money and Time!!! And you run out of both rather quickly, generally the former vanishing at a much faster rate!!! Even I ran out of both pretty fast. The others had extended the already extended weekend and had taken Monday off, but I had to be back at work on Monday. So I stretched the limits on both, my wallet and time, and kept on drinking and gambling till 7 in the morning on Saturday/Sunday night. Slept at 7.30 Am and woke up at 10.30 AM and started my 550 mile drive, back to home all alone at 12 noon.

Within 5 minutes of starting, I am in the worst jam I have ever witnessed or heard about in the US!!!! For the first time in US, I saw people driving on the shoulders, at times even jams on the shoulder, people who have given up and pulled over, people with trucks with off road capabilities driving on the almost non-existent roads, roads worse than most village roads in India and unpaved roads!!!!! For the first 4 hours, every time I was able to put my car in the 2nd gear or touch a speed of 20mph, I felt like celebrating!!!! Finally the jam relaxed and I managed to reach Barstow, 150 miles from Vegas, around 6 in the evening, taking 6 hours to cover the distance which is a 2-2.5 hour drive in normal circumstances!!!! Phewww!!!! Had my first break at Barstow and refueled both myself and my Mustang.

But it was still not over!!! The ~150 mile road from Barstow to Bakersfield is mostly a farm road going though a valley and has a very dense fog on some days in winters. Today was one of those "blessed" days!!! After 7-7.30 pm, the fog became so dense, I was hardly able to see anything. The road was deserted and looked like I was the only one travelling on that road. This was both good and bad. Good because my chance of ramming into someone was very less and bad because I could not follow anybody. One good part of US highways is that you can be almost certain that there will not be any vehicle standing in the middle of the road and the other good thing is that the lanes are always marked. So I kept on moving, following the side markings, just managing to avoid going off the road.

I had been driving for about 10 hrs, the time it should normally take to reach home from Vegas, and was totally exhausted by now as I had not slept properly in the last 4 days. I thought that there is no way I can make it and decided to stay at a motel for the night. But I was in the middle of nowhere!!!! There was no sign of life around. I am sure, even if there was any motel right off the highway, I would have missed it because of the fog. So with no other option, I kept on moving. Finally I crossed Bakersfield and then hit I-5 around 12 in the night. Once on I-5, it was much easier. Although the fog was still quite dense but the flow of traffic was quite heavy. So it was all about just following the vehicle in front of you and pray that it won't stop suddenly.

Found a rest area, within 30 minutes of hitting I-5. I parked in the area and slept in the car for half an hour. This was all I needed. After this power nap my batteries were recharged and the rest of the journey home was uneventful and relatively easy. Finally relieved to reached home at 4.30 AM after these 4 crazy days. It was a crazy crazy trip and I enjoyed it quite a lot.