Another new place

Finals done, we beat it out of town for a few days. I'm currently in Newport Beach, CA. I'm sitting in Starbucks, having walked (I know it's California, but I still like to walk) a half mile up from the hotel. Across the street is a marina, something called Hampton Yacht Group, 2 Irish bars, a wig store, a jeweler, and 3 seafood restaurants including, oddly enough, a Joe's Crab Shack, a chain whose newest branch is a similar distance from my home.

The flight here was routine, which is to say, long and uncomfortable as any 5 1/2 hour flight is bound to be. It was absolutely without incident, aside from my rental car having a low tire, which we noticed before we drove off, so no harm, no foul. We're driving a gray Chevy Malibu, which is completely nondescript from the outside and very high tech looking on the dashboard. So high tech, in fact, that I still haven't found the trip odometer.

We then spent the next hour of our lives on the San Diego Freeway. I lived in LA for 2 years right after getting married, spent a summer in Orange County as a 19 year-old (can we spell B-O-R-I-N-G?) and have been here for business on many other occasions. One of this areas distinctive features is that you can drive for a long period of time, and whether or not you're moving quickly, which we were not, it still looks like you haven't gotten anywhere.

The first 15 minutes of this drive were spent trying to figure out how and when to enter the HOV lane. There were 3 of us in the car, so the carpool lane, which was perhaps moving 2 mph faster than the rest of the road, was available to us, except for the double yellow and solid white line. The regular lanes were moving slowly enough that I was able to research the rules for carpool lanes in LA. Crossing those lines is potentially a ticket and $350 fine. They take their driving seriously here.

Eventually figured out that every 2-3 exits there were places where you could enter or exit the lane. We did that for a while and then got off to take Pacific Coast Highway instead. The PCH is a California institution, of course, and everyone's seen it at least on TV, since virtually every car commercial showing a car driving with mountains on one side and water on the other is filmed on the PCH. But not this part. No mountains, and for the first 5 miles or so, no water either.

Eventually we reached the beach towns, where everyone was wrapping up their surfing and making bonfires on the beach. So many people in dozens of different groups, all doing the same thing. Honestly, it looked like fun.

Finally reached our destination after 2 hours on the road (it's 45 miles- it takes me 3 hours to do 45 miles on my bicycle) and by that time we had time to take a short walk, have dinner, and go to bed. More to report later.