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 :)

Day 16: Las Vegas, NV to Los Angeles, CA

We cut the time in Vegas from four days to three, which would give us an extra day in LA. After visiting the Stratosphere (see last blog entry) we headed to Los Angeles, leaving the rest of the crew for another day in Vegas. Jared had left a day before us. Hopefully our trip to LA would be a little easier than him as he had taken over 6 hours due to accidents and traffic jams.

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

It was a relatively short drive and quite uneventful, but offers some nice scenery before entering Los Angeles. There is a really dramatic point when approaching the crest of one hill where the weather changes within a few seconds from sunny and warm to completely overcast and cold. It's caused by something to do with the ocean and hills, and perhaps the famous LA pollution, and butterflies, I don't know.

A big mistake to make when passing that point and entering the outskirts of LA is to assume you have arrived at your destination. Ohhh no. It's a huge place. At one point we wondered what town those big buildings on the horizon belonged to, and it then dawned on us that they were downtown LA. We drove on I10 westerly across the city towards the ocean. This road is nice as the traffic moves quickly but it's in a disastrous physical state. The washboard effect is so bad we pulled off the highway at one point to check that my suspension hadn't failed and was causing the bouncing.

Once we hit the ocean front all was forgiven. Other than getting to an amazing looking area, we had finally reached the Pacific. On one journey we had been at the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific. Lots more pics and stories of the area to come over the next couple of days.

We found a hotel in Venice right on the beach with a pretty nice view:

From 2007 USA Elises

Days 13-16: Las Vegas

Now that we have moved on from Vegas I can do a recap of what we got up to.

All seven of us stayed at The Sahara, a casino/hotel that has by its own admission seen a more glamorous time (all the brochures talk about the Rat Pack). We actually liked the cheesy second tier feel of it, and because it is a little distance from the main strip not so crazily busy. It also has a really fun roller coaster attached to it. Having said that some bits of it are a bit frustrating, but we understand they are in the process of being taken over or something. Thankfully it is on the Vegas Monorail so all the major destinations are a quick ride away.

Any Vegas recount has to include the gambling. I am not a big gambler myself; I see it as spending some money to have fun rather than trying to make money, and with Priya watching like a hawk we are really tame gamblers. Whenever we won anything she would make us stop and move on, and $3 War was our favourite game, which says it all. In the end we ended up about even cash wise, and definitely up given the amount we drank :)

At The Flamingo for dinner and drinks:

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

We walked around a couple of the casinos. Here is the interior of the shopping gallery in Caesar's Palace:

From 2007 USA Elises

Ben, Keith, Sophie and Declan had really wanted to go see Prince. The box office there was releasing extra tickets the night of the concert, so they tried their luck. After a couple of hours it looked bleak, but some people they had chatted up came into possession of 20 VIP tickets and all of a sudden they were getting royal treatment. Even Paris Hilton had worse seats behind them; someone sneaked a photo ;)

As they were living the high life Priya and I went to see The Amazing Johnathan, something we had planned to do for months. Some of you may have seen him on Comedy Central. Billed as 'The Freddy Krueger of Comedy', his show incorporates silly magic and a lot of adult humour, a little similar to Penn and Teller but less actual magic and more laughs. We met him afterwards, but the poor fellow seemed a little burned out. I am sure Priya grabbing his cheeks made him feel a lot better.

"Dance Monkey Dance" From 2007 USA Elises

Before we left on Saturday we rode the Sahara coaster (again) and headed to the Stratosphere, 1,149ft high tower near the hotel that has three rides on top of it: one that goes up and down vertically on the top, another that spins around and hangs the riders off the edge, and a third that see-saws the riders again off the edge of the tower (here is a video of Priya and Keith on this one). The last two are particularly terrifying, and I didn't go near them. They can be seen in the second picture here hanging off the edge.

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

Automapic.com update

I got round to doing some more site work. GPS path performance has been optimised, but the biggest update has been addressing the scalability issues that have really slowed down the adding /deleting of markers (itinerary points, people and locations). Everything should be back to being nice and slick. Please email me if there are any issues at all with the site.

This journey is the first testing of automapic.com so thanks for bearing with some of the teething problems.

Itinerary update

We are considering donating a day from Vegas to Los Angeles. This will mean spending three days in each place rather than four in Vegas and two in LA. We think three Vegas days is probably enough, and there are too many things we want to get done in LA in the time we had allotted.

Day 13: Gallup, NM to Las Vegas, NV

This blog entry is a bit late, sorry! We have been a bit distracted since getting to Vegas.

Before we left Gallup we wanted to visit some of the local Indian shops in the area. According to our place mats at dinner the night before the area has the greatest density of native merchants in the state...or something. Jared has been wanting to buy a nice rug for the last few days, and had passed on some in San Antonio, so was eager to hit the shops. It seems the merchants had also been eager, but on their pricing. The rugs were nice, but $3000+ for a rug is just silly and we soon headed out empty handed.

We had arranged to meet Steve (nvrblu on EliseTalk) for the leg between Holbrook and Flagstaff in Arizona. Getting the exact time was a bit confusing as we didn't really know what the time was. We had been through a couple of time zones, and my phone said one time, the computers we had said different ones, the television declared another, and we knew we were entering a new one when crossing from New Mexico into Arizona. This new time zone also didn't honour Daylight Savings, which just added to the confusion.

Steve was ready for us once we got there, and wasn't angry so the time confusion wasn't too bad it seems. He has a really nice Laser Blue Elise and we convoyed to the big meteor crater in Arizona. Saffron Yellow and Chrome Orange aren't exactly the colour marriage made in heaven, but Laser Blue complements both really well:

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

The crater is about 50,000 years old, so relatively young for such a sight, but a real treat to visit. The wind was ferocious, as can be gathered by this video clip.

Steve peeled off as we approached Flagstaff, Arizona, and headed south back to his house. Flagstaff is almost the center of the state, but is quite different to the rest of it terrain wise as there are lots of trees:

From 2007 USA Elises

Nearing Vegas we went across (or through?) the Hoover Dam. I would like to say it's spectacular, but as with many structures experienced from an Elise, it is hard to see much due to being so low to the ground. Due to the volume of tourists however I am sure it is spectacular though. After crossing the Hoover Dam one enters Nevada proper. The first thing I noticed was how the houses were integrated into the landscape. Remember the Hobbit village at the beginning of Lord of the Rings, where the houses are beautifully integrated into the scenery and look as if they have been living side by side in harmony for years? This is totally the opposite.

We got to Vegas in the early evening, and over the next few hours everyone we were planning to meet up with arrived at the hotel, resulting in a gang of seven to enjoy the city together over the next few days.

Day 12: Lubbock, TX to Gallup, NM

The weather was cooler today, so another day driving with the top on. We were both a little relieved as the sun had taken its toll on us a few days back. It is also much more tiring to drive in hot sun all day. We had the final portion of Texas to negotiate (an hour and a half or so), and after 4 nights in the state entered New Mexico.

A friendly elderly gentleman at a petrol station in Lubbock had warned us of the police once we got to New Mexico. We don't drive over the limit anyway but we soon saw what he meant. After Clovis, which I randomly recall was the name of the policeman's cat in one Steven King tale, a Scion xB was trailing us. He then sped past and 5 seconds later a cop did a U-turn and put on his lights. In fairness the Scion immediately pulled over, even though he was in front of us. The reassuring thing is that the police haven't been unfair to us at all. Being paranoid one would think that two bright sports cars would be picked out over other vehicles, but we are going the speed limit and have not been unfairly singled out (fingers crossed).

New Mexico is a stunning state. We weren't tempted to stop anywhere but the scenery in itself is a joy to experience. Unlike the north westerly Texas drive where we occasionally went through towns (well, enlarged crossroads), today was almost all highway driving. I really like the light green colour of the grass and the hills are spectacular.

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

Later at dinner Jared and I were discussing what kind of local economy New Mexico has. I know how some people get by: we paid $3.20 a gallon for 90 octane fuel at one point.

The many roadside billboards kept me quite amused for much of New Mexico, especially when approaching an exit. By approaching I mean 50 miles before an exit they start, hyping up apparent wonders of the world that simply can't be missed. The excitement builds and builds with the promise of everything man, woman and child could ever wish for, and then finally a small run down shack with a 40 year old paint job anticlimactically goes by.

From 2007 USA Elises

From 2007 USA Elises

One sign did catch my eye, which exclaimed "LET'S FAT!". It turned out to be another one of those poorly designed ones where smaller writing had in fact obscured the lower portion of second E, although my interpretation was probably closer to the truth.

We had considered stopping at Albuquerque, but it was just a big blob of roadworks. All it took to decide whether to stop was a quick glance over to Jared, a mutual shake of heads and a slight depression of the accelerator. I had gone to all the trouble of finally learning how to spell the bloody place without looking it up and we ended up bypassing it. So, like 99.99% of the world my only experience of Albuquerque remains with that terrible Prefab Sprout song from 20 or so years ago.

We had some interesting things to negotiate on the road. A random hail storm that lasted about 20 seconds was one. A little further on we had to swerve past a coyote that was dragging a carcass off the road, totally oblivious to the 80 mile an hour traffic. We also got some slalom practice in when a large number of tumbleweeds crossed the road. They can get pretty big, and although I am unsure what they would do to the car we instinctively dodged around them. It's worth praising Lotus here; flicking the Elise left and right at high speed is totally undramatic and rewardingly fun.

Towards the end of the day I passed 4,000 miles driven since Philadelphia. This should be approximately half way distance wise for the whole trip based on our rough estimates. Jared should be at around 3,500. The cars are running brilliantly.

Tomorrow we have the drive to Las Vegas and then three whole days of not driving an inch. Not that I am bored with driving, far from it; in fact only someone who loved driving could undertake such a trip in such a car and not go insane, but it will be nice to have some drinks, late nights and let our hair down. We will also be accompanied by Steve off EliseTalk for the section between Holbrook and Flagstaff.

As usual there are more pictures in the gallery than I have linked here.