PoTW 07/17/09 – Starting off the weekend with a blaze

We’re up in the Bay Area this weekend to celebrate Christabel and Tedman’s (or Tedman and Christabel’s) wedding!  The plan was this: Christina was at Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) training on Friday, and the hope was that she would be able to get out of the second day (of two days) of training in time for us to get on the road with plenty of time to get on the road to get up to SF at a reasonable hour.

Right out of the gate, we saw a big rig flipped over on the Slauson on ramp to 605.  Not a good omen.  It took us roughly 20-30 minutes to traverse a section of road that normally would have taken all of 3 minutes at worst.  We hit more traffic on I-5 and it took us another 40 minutes to an hour to get out to the grapevine.  Smooth sailing after that, right?  No such luck.  Round about Pyramid Lake, the freeway turns into a parking lot.  This is what we saw:

It took us about an hour to get through the traffic that you see there, and when we finally did, Christina very deftly snapped some pictures to see what all the fuss was about:

Oh. My.  Bus carcass.  We booked it up to SF at the highest, safest speed that we could.  We finally arrived at Pau Pau’s house at about 10:30 PM, having left Whittier at 2:45.  Good Lord, that was a long trip.  After doing some investagative research, I found the following story:

CASTAIC, Calif. — A passenger bus went up in flames Friday on Interstate 5 northwest of Los Angeles but all ten people aboard got off safely, the company said. The blaze sparked a brushfire.

The bus, operated by Coach America, had pulled onto the shoulder of the interstate, a major connector between Los Angeles and California’s Central Valley.

Glass windows broke and several explosions could be heard as the bus burned, and only a skeleton remained after the fire was out.

The vehicle was en route to Bakersfield from the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero in Washington, D.C. said. Amtrak has bus connections in parts of California not served by rail.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

After the nine passengers and the driver disembarked, the fire spread to nearby brush. Northbound traffic was brought to a halt when firefighters arrived on scene. The fire burned about 10 acres.

In the same region, Los Angeles County firefighters were battling a 55-acre wildfire.

More than 200 firefighters fought the Castaic-area blaze, which erupted at midafternoon in medium brush, said fire Inspector Steve Zermeno.

An aircraft painted a line of pink fire retardant across hilly lands between the fire and a neighborhood of homes. Containment was estimated at 70 percent by nightfall.

Geez o peez.  I’m just glad that we finally made it.  More pictures from today’s goings on as they go on.

OC? or “auh see”?

(“auh see” is cantonese for #2)

We’re finally headed back to the friendly environment of Northern California, in the fresh, clean air of the Bay Area, trying to escape from under the smog blanket of the LA Basin. And now, for a blow by blow recap of the experience:

When we first arrived at LAX, we went to go get the rental car. Luckily, we were able to get a Chevy Impala instead of a minivan, which I am morally opposed to. We got a little lost finding the hotel, but we eventually found our way to the Hampton Inn LAX. The area around Inglewood is pretty ghetto, but the hotel was nice. Standard Hampton Inn. After settling in and getting Emmett acclimatized to a new place, we hopped in the car and headed to our closest Trader Joe’s to find some sustenance which came in the form of a shepherd’s pie and a pear and gorgonzola salad. After that, we headed down to the testing site so we wouldn’t get lost in the morning. It was at this point that Christina realized that she hadn’t brought her stethoscope with her, and we spent a better part of the evening fretting over whether or not the testing site would have extra steths for the examinees. After a while, we concluded that this kind of thing happens all the time, and surely, they must have extras. Right? RIGHT?

The next morning, our trusty alarm, aka Emmett, went off at 4:45, so we didn’t miss our complimentary continental breakfast (why is it called continental anyway? Do they not have them in Hawaii?). After our hearty breakfast we got on the road to drop Christina off at her test. Emmett and I headed back to the hotel to hang out and wait. I watched the Mets play the Indians on ESPN while Emmett rolled around on one of the double beds. At about 1:30, we started packing up and left to go drive around until Christina got out of her test. We went up and down Sepulveda Blvd for a while, and found a shopping center with a Best Buy, Borders, Cost Plus, Whole Foods, and a couple other shops. We decided to walk around there for a little bit, and that’s when I realized that I had left my fleece in the hotel! I called the hotel to have them check for it, but they never called me back. At around 3:30, Christina called and we picked her up from the test. It turns out that they DID have extra steths, and she got a nice lavender one to use. We went back to the hotel, retrieved the prodigal sweater, and headed down to Irvine.

After what seemed like 3 hours later, we arrived at Hannah’s apartment, where Emmett met James:

We met up with Herman and Ellie at the California Fish Grille for dinner. Good seafood at pretty affordable prices. After dinner, we went over to the Ng’s to spend the night (Didn’t want to spend the night with a dog).

Saturday:
We hit the road pretty early to meet ALBERT in San Gabriel for an early yum cha.

After eating our fill, we again hit the road to go to Pasadena to meet Cha Cha at Pinkberry on Colorado Blvd. Emmett got his first taste of grown-up food:

After getting caught up with “the dark one”, we headed over to Hollywood to check out the LA Farmer’s Market. We enjoyed a savory crepe and some homemade ice cream:

Then we went to Sur La Table to try on chef’s hats:

Then we spent another couple hours on the freeway to head down to DISNEYLAND!!!! Emmett barely made it:

see what LA traffic has done to my son? Before too long, we were on our way into the park.

Hannah used her annual pass to bring Emmett into the park. She took a lot of pictures to prove that he was there:

Meanwhile, Emmett’s parents wandered around:



Rather than wait in the lines at Downtown Disney restaurants, we went to Claim Jumpers in Irvine for dinner. Before that, however, Emmett needed to leave his mark on the Disneyland parking structure:

“Sir, your car is leaking.”
“Um, no, it’s not.”

We headed back to the Ng’s for the evening. We hit the road and made it to the airport in plenty of time, where we now sit waiting for our plane to board. We’re currently surrounded by a group of annoying teenagers that I suspect are on our flight. (oops…Emmett just made a poopy diaper…Christina’s hoping that’ll scare some of them off…)

**EDIT: Perhaps the most encouraging part of the weekend: