Rocking the Shades in SoCAL - One
Wednesday, July 3rd
The cars split up as such, Philip and I, George and Tim, and Paul and Phillip. First stop is at the gas station to fill up and check tire pressures, with which Mac's car had a wonderful 20 psi (should be at 40). Actually we spent nearly 10 minutes waiting for this lamer s2000 with two fairy guys that didn't know how to use the air pressure machine. After Foobie checks his tire pressure and George looks at his nice bald tires, we take off onto 580.
The first incident happened at the 580 to I-5 split, we view as George (in the lead) doesn't seem to notice that he is supposed to take the exchange until the very last second which he swerves 2 lanes into the right in the warning zone. Foobie, on the other hand, we don't see at all, upon which I ask "Did Foobie make it?" Mac: "I don't know, I don't see his car". Me: "Bye Foobie". But fortunately a half mile later we see Foobies car pull up alongside ours. There were only 2 traffic slowdowns, once due to a small fender bender and I don't remember what the second one was, but due to the July 4th weekend, there were a good number of cars on the road. The first half of the drive is quite uneventfu, except at one point it looked like George was about to take a random exit in the middle of nowhere but he was simply letting us pass him by I believe. Foobie, however, was unwilling to drive beyond 80 mph for the most part, for reasons unknown by myself at that point.
Our first stop was at Wasco County where we decide to stop off to grab some food at midnight at a Denny's, which I recognized because Wayne and I had stopped at the same one a few years back. There were about 20 people there with one waitress. After a couple minutes wait, we were seated and the nice waitress came up to explain to us how she was the only one and there was only one cook so our food might take half an hour or so, but that wasn't a problem for us. Foobie wanted a coke to go in a cup. We all got some cokes and after 15 minutes or so, the waitress came back to apologize and explain how there was no more food except a cold "moons over my hammy" because the cook had to go to the hospital for a "medical emergency". We got up, contemplated about the cokes until mac and I convinced them they were free while Foobie worried about jacking his coke in a cup. We drove down the street to the Jack in the Crack, where I saw the same people from Denny's waiting in line for food haha. They were out of rice so no Terikayi bowl for me. While we sat down, there were two asian girls and two guys with them that came in, the one happa chick was kinda cute cause she was wearing pajamas. After the quick meal and another 10 minutes while they brewed another pot of their stank coffee for George, a quick refill at the Chevron (mixing 76 and Techron, oh no! j/k), we were back on our way. While going through the grapevine, Mac got a call from Foobie asking him if he could "drive more consistently", as we were weaving a tad bit through slower traffic. During this time, we had made a few calls to Fling, who was in SD getting boba with his sister Marge and her friends.
At roughly 3 am, Mac makes another call but accidentally calls Marge's roommate in SD and gets a very sleepy voice on the other end haha. As we hit LA, George calls to say that he is extremely tired and about to pass out so he pulls ahead of us and speeds off and we stay back to help keep pace with Foobie's car. Hitting Culver City, Mac and I have a quick discussion, a quick call to Fling, and it's decided we are still 40 minutes away from the Culver exit. At the same time, George and Reod have pulled over at a random off-ramp to get some sleep. As we get into Irvine and see the real CUlver exit, Mac had said some undecipherable remarks during my attempted transcription during direction taking via his conversation with Felix, resulting in some missing pieces. We approach Turtle Rock, guess and take a right. 3/4 of a mile down, we don't see any of the streets that Felix said and so we turn around (obviously we should've taken a left). Upon entry into Sycamore Creek, I say something to Mac like "2 Sycamore Creek, okay it's right here" and Mac makes a U-turn... during which I look down and realize "oops, there's another 2 lines in the instruction, it's on Rippling". Another U-turn and we pass by some other streets with water reference giving us a notion that we are getting closer. We finally see the Rippling Court, and Felix's house is nearly at the end with the porch light on. There's a tiny small turnaround circle at the end and I tell Mac to circle it a few times to see how long Foobie would follow us for hahah... we take two circles, he follows us twice hahah, and then we park at about 4 am. 6.5 hour trip.. aiyaa.
Felix comes outside bearing a camera and that's the first time I had met him. Just like in all the pictures, except much more quiet spoken. His parent's house in Irvine has a cool gated area with a porch style swing in front, which I'm sure Felix has p1mped on quite a few times. The living room had what seemed to be a hundred tennis trophies while the kitchen calendar was turned to March 2002. It had been a while apparently since someone had resided at the house. We sit around and shoot the breeze while George had woken up and they were back on the road but had unfortunately taken the Culver City exit instead and were wandering around the hood there. A discussion ensues between what the July 4th activity should be and between having our own bbq at Felix's house or a pre-established one in SD with all of Marge's friends, the latter is chosen due to the pre-established food potential and hey, there should be girls! Actually my sister was having a bbq with her sorority girls and frat boys at a local beach but SD sounded dope too. Marge was 'supposedly' asleep when we had gotten there but Mac and my theory was that she was scared of us haha. Felix was kind enough to have drove out to a local supermarket and picked up like 5 lbs of candy, chips, and soda, including starburst jelly beans! George and Reod make it at about 5 am. We chat up a bit, watch some ESPN, and everyone starts taking homestead claims for sleeping area.
Felix had 2 twin beds in one of the bedrooms, which he pushed apart by about 6 inches (Marge got a kick out of that one). Pres and Foobs took the living room, Mac and eventually George made their way into the bedroom (uhh.. 6 inches of separation), Fling took the dining room floor, Reod took the couch, and I took the family floor next to the kitchen. Unfortunately I had a hard time sleeping on my back on the floor and assisted by the energy drinks (Amp for me, Red Bull for Mac) that we had at 4 am, I was tossing and turning for an hour to no avail. Eventually at about 7 am, I hear someone stumble out of the bedroom into the living room and it was Mac. He crashes in front of the tv, toss and turn for about 5 minutes then I get up and he gets up and we decide sleeping was not possible at the current moment. It was then that Mac revealed the true reasoning behind his current insomnia, which was George's awesome snoring. we go around taking pics of everyone sleeping and then proceed to take the infamous George "in action" shot. As we get back into the living room, Fling has awoken and brings out the Nintendo! Mac owns on me in Blades of Steel, M.U.S.C.L.E.S follows, as does Pro Wrestling, until we finally get upon Tennis. We get our butts kicked on Level 5. haha. Soon Marge and everyone else wakes up and we get ready to head out to grab some lunch.
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Ooooh Britney.. Rock the shades and take me home!