Day Two of Utah-L.A. Move, Continued: The Heat Is On!

So, I buy: chocolate milk (YUM! Haven't had in years!!), an old-fashioned-style blackberry soda, and a bottle of lemonade. I don't get any water because I think these three will hydrate me enough. So I slam the chocolate milk, and half to two-thirds of the CARBONATED blackberry soda in the desert heat, and then pull out of Chainsaw Market. By the time I get off of the on-ramp back onto I-15, my stomach is killing me...."What," I wonder, "could possibly be wrong with my stomach? The only thing I've really consumed is.....chocolate MILK on a blazing hot day AND 12 oz. of (minimally flavored) carbonated sugar water...it couldn't possibly be that, could it??" Haha! Now, I write that as if I had no idea, but I did....I just write it like that because I felt SOOO stupid for not foreseeing that this would happen. Let's mix an empty stomach, desert heats, milk, carbonation, sugar and dehydration. Bright mix, Apollo. Lol.

So the next town (same mini-market type of situation) is about a half hour away and I am plugging along the best I can with my circumstances. I feel like I'm about to puke AND pass out now (haha!) and luckily I make it to the next town and buy like 2 or 3 waters and chug 1.5 of 'em! My body gratefully soaks up the water and I am on my way again!

As I am driving into areas with real-life now, I have no map. And I am on the freeway. In Los Angeles. Yeah, one thing that I am illuminating about myself through writing these blogs is that I am possibly THE most ill-prepared traveler ever. HAHA. My whole life, I always thought you could take I-15 straight down to L.A. Turns out it actually goes straight to San Diego, which is a surprising distance away from L.A. (in my opinion). Luckily -- seriously, "by the grace of god" defined -- I happened to be exploring Google Maps out of minute curiosity the week before and I remember only that I was surprised to learn I can't take I-15 straight to L.A., and that I need to get onto another freeway somewhere after Barstow. I was in a hurry at the time, so I didn't memorize anything and told myself to come back and search again before I made the drive down. Yeah....if you didn't notice, in the last blog, I said I'd finish Day Two's blog the next day, and here it is, a day late (and that is only because I randomly came back to my blog and saw that I had made a promise about which I'd apparently forgot and felt a little bad so I was motivated to write this blog....therefore, AMPLE evidence that I am not the best at keeping my commitments to focus online. Lol.

So, I'm on the freeway, and I come to a choice: I can either go South to San Diego or West to Pasadena. Wait a minute. Where's my "South to Los Angeles" option??? Shit! Well, I don't want to keep going to San Diego, but I don't know if I'll come across another freeway that will take me away from SD.....so.....I choose to go to Pasadena and hope for the best! HAHA! So I'm pluggin along toward Pasadena, and another choice comes upon me....continue to Pasadena, or go toward....Los Angeles! Yea! This time it is in my favor! Lol. So of course I head toward L.A. and then I have a bit of a mental problem. There are two freeways here that are similarly numbered. The 110 and the 101. Which one is it that takes me into Hollywood? And which one is the devil's freeway?? I can't remember for the life of me! And I'm comin up on the exits for both....oh shit...how do I decide, how do I decide????
Well, thank god California Department of Transportation planned ahead for idiots like me. They nicknamed the 101 "Hollywood Freeway" and even went so far as to publish it on the last "exit now" sign! So I swerve into the exit lane right before it veers off the highway and head into Hollywood. Ahhhhhh, familiar territory....how I love thee....

I get into town (took the wrong exit and drove much longer than I needed to...) and pull up to my lovely place of residence. I jump out of my car, excited to lay my body down and walk up to the gate, where I must put in the code to get in. So, I put it in. And no loud, annoying, make-you-want-to-carve-your-eardrums-out-of-your-ears noise booms. What? So I put the code in again. Once again, no noise. HUH?? So I put it in again (because this makes lots of sense at this point). NO NOISE! What the fuck?!? So I call James (my roommate) and ask what's going on, and he goes into some story about them changing the codes and the codes not working and basically I'm pissed. So I get to sit outside of my own apartment like a panhandler waiting for someone to come who knows how to get in.

When I finally get inside, I lie down, James gets home and tells me I should go get a box-fan to put into my window. You are a genius, James, because it is blisteringly hot and I was too tired and dead to think of that myself! So I go get a box-fan (for $20...jealous that I can't buy the portable A/C units for $200.......) and come home and put it in my window. I turn my back on it to surf the net and ten minutes later I hear a BANG-CRASH (WTF??) and all of a sudden I no longer feel fanny-goodness. Once again, WTF?? Apparently, my fan was blasting so hard (huh?....) that it fell backward, broke my window screen and fell two stories onto the ground below. Oh, yea!! I am so excited at this point that I spent $20 for ten minutes of a working fan!! HAHAHA. So I begrudgingly go and collect my fan, assuming it's dead and trying to figure out what I can say to Home Depot to get them to give me a refund, and I bring it back upstairs and plug it in, and it works like it's still new! (Well, 'cause it is....but I mean, like it never fell two stories and smashed to the cement! Lol). So, luckily, I have, like, the mini-est side table ever in my room (like, I think the actual circumference is 10 inches.....) and I get the fan somewhat properly set on that so it works, it's halfway as cool as if I'd set the fan in the window sill, and makes the room bearable.

Once again, James being a genius, he comes into my room a couple days later and asks why my fan is not in my window, and I reply that it fell out onto the cement outside after ten minutes and I did not want to have to make that journey to collect it every ten minutes for the rest of the summer....So he asks "Well, did you close the window on it to hold it in?" No. I did not. Of course. And he puts it in the window, closes the window on the top of it to hold it in, and ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you...it has stayed there for 2 days now straight!
Two thumbs up for intellect!!