Day 17: Los Angeles, CA

Every Sunday a bunch of LA Elise owners get together for a drive up through the hills. Their meeting place is in Marina del Rey, just a few minutes away from our hotel, so it was an easy decision to join them. The downside was their departure time of 9am, and this meant forcing myself out of bed at 8 after we had been out late eating and drinking. Later I understood the early time though; the traffic really gets heavy as the day goes on, and there is nothing worse than being stuck in traffic when on a fun drive. The early time also provided some fortunate fair weather; later in the afternoon it did start to rain.

There were about 10 Elises, which I understood is a very good turnout. Some guy also showed up with an Ariel Atom. He was, to be nice, a bit of a misery but it was nice seeing the car and good having people over here buying them. I didn't get any pics, but Jared took some and may put them up in his gallery.

From 2007 USA Elises

The drive itself was incredible. Mile after mile of really twisty hill roads. As is sensible when driving any new area I took it easy at the start, but Josh who was behind me is an experienced canyon driver and filled my mirrors for the first few miles. As we progressed it became more and more fun, with plenty of fast corners and lots of heel-toe practice.

I only caught the scenery out of the corner of my eye once or twice, and certainly had no opportunity to take any pictures. When we head out of LA tomorrow we may drive one portion of the route again in a more leisurely fashion and get some photos and absorb what I think were some pretty amazing vistas.

I thought I was well prepared for the drive, but got everything wrong. I set up the ChaseCam but had forgotten the Compact Flash card, so no video. I was recording our GPS path but forgot to plug the laptop in, so the GPS track ends halfway through the drive. Then after the third canyon run I ran out of fuel. Thankfully Milton was kindly on hand to drive me to the very cheap $3.80 a gallon for 90 octane and $16 for a gas can station up the road. Here is a screenshot of some of the GPS route. I set my software to only capture a point every 10 seconds or so, and as a result there are many corners not represented in the path, but you can get the idea. They are really fortunate to have roads like that around here, and being able to drive the canyons is the perfect antidote for other, less desirable areas of LA.

From 2007 USA Elises

As I mentioned, the traffic on and around the PCH gets really heavy as the day goes on, and I passed more flashy cars than you could shake a stick at. However the lunch location we had planned to meet at was simply too busy and Priya was (finally) surfacing, so I headed back to Venice for a change of pace.

Venice is a largely bohemian area with a busy boardwalk by the beach and a network of canals. Rather than recount the history of the place, the Wikipedia page is quite an interesting read. We walked the boardwalk for a while, buying some cheap nick-nacks from the hippy merchants, amusing ourselves with the street entertainers and grabbing some lunch.

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

We came across this fellow and Priya started cooing. He is apparently in a lot of movies and known for being a famous homeless person. He seemed to have a finely tuned sense of being the center of attention: I pointed a camera at him after he went by and he instantly span around, hand outstretched for a donation. Then in one motion like a ninja unsheathing a hidden sword he produced a tshirt from behind his back. He seems to have quite an industry going.

From 2007 USA Elises

Later on we met Priya's friend Mohini and Jared for some Thai food in Santa Monica. Quite a full day but very enjoyable :)