Call it The Ninety Four and I’ll cut you.

I remember the first time I went to California. My dad was taking my sister and me from our home in Idaho to Disneyland in Anaheim. One of my most vivid memories of that trip was when we were going through some interchange. The highway which we were on was crowded, moving fast with lanes splitting off and merging in and multi-leveled. I thought it was fun. Once we got through it, my dad said, “You like that?” I nodded my head. Years later I found out that it scared the crap out of him.

When I arrived in San Diego, Stacey picked me up at the airport and we were off to her house to drop off my luggage. At first, I didn’t think too much of the driving aspect as we were on the surface streets but soon enough I was grasping for the Oh-Shit-Bar as we plunged into the California Highway system which didn’t seem to end until were practically at her apartment. And it wasn’t just one highway that we were on… at least… I don’t think it was one. Anyways it felt like we were mergining and exiting from Highway A to Highway B to Highway C--one right after the other and at breakneck speed with other cars only feet away.

It wasn’t just the highway that got my heart pumping, it was the way traffic behaves. Drivers around there perform U-turns like crazy. I know that you can do them at intersections but I’ve never seen people actually do them as much as those crazy Californians do. I’m tempted to try it some time.

I’m sure that if I lived there, I’d get the hang of it soon enough but man… I’m sure glad that I wasn’t driving.

As we move along, be sure to visit Stacey's blog as she has some thoughts on this trip as well. Plus--pictures!