Goodbye L.A.

Originally posted on MySpace on April 22, 2007.

Today I left the city that Five For Fighting calls home. I do so with a sense of accomplishment, having visited some places previously only known in song or photos. I would have to say that last night's show at the Wiltern Theater was the best so far...a big, appreciative crowd, I scored a primo spot right in front, the stage lighting was terrific (great job, Don!), and John and the band ROCKED!

It had been a long time since I last visited Los Angeles...I believe it was 1985 when I went on a holiday season vacation with my sisters. One thing that has not changed since then...the traffic and the maniac drivers. Some people think that the L.A. freeways are their own private racetracks...there's no such thing as a speed limit. In fact, it does remind me a lot of a particular arcade driving game that I'm fond of called...California Speed. That must be the reason I was able to hold my own so well against them...honing my driving skills with the game. Not that I was driving that fast. Oh, I admit I was over the speed limit, but no more than 5 mph...pretty much everyone was passing me. I bet some of them were cursing me for getting in their way...too bad.

Before I made my way east to Utah, I had one important stop to make. I dropped by the city of Commerce, location of Precision Wire Products. Now, John has mentioned this place a few times in interviews and even during his concert banter. This factory is owned by John's dad, and makes shopping carts...the best in the U.S., according to John. So, if you do business at Costco or Walmart and find yourself pushing a sturdy wire shopping cart, chances are it was made at Precision.

Another place John has talked about, and was also a blog topic by My Space friend Doppler, is In-N-Out Burger. Now, they don't have In-N-Out back home in Washington state. In fact, it's nowhere to be found anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, or much of the rest of the country for that matter. My first encounter with this fast food restaurant's culinary delights was in Las Vegas two years ago. John wrote about In-N-Out's double double burger...double meat, double cheese...in his song California Justice. The three times I've eaten there, I've only gotten the single, which was quite enough for me. Well, because this is my Five For Fighting groupie road trip, I felt that it just wouldn't seem right to leave The Golden State without sampling the famous double double. As I neared the town of Hesperia along I-15, I spotted the billboard along the road, directing me to the exit to In-N-Out Burger. I proceeded to order the double double with onions, but no fries...I think this would be quite enough food for me. I wasn't disappointed...it tasted just as great as the single, only bigger. So, now, I can say I did the double double...in Hesperia, not Mojave!

A little further up the road, I made another stop for nostagia's sake. Right outside the town of Yermo, CA, is the historic town of Calico, home of Calico Ghost Town. Calico was a mining town back in the late 1800s...silver was king. When the price of silver nosedived, Calico became a ghost town, so to speak. Today, it's a tourist attraction with a Old West mining theme. Our family visited Calico Ghost Town when I was a kid, and I wanted to check it out to see what I remembered of the place. The most memorable attraction for me back then was their Mystery Shack, with strange optical illusions. I allowed myself one additional cheesy tourist thing...the last was that Tour Thru tree...panning for silver. But, it was really something I wanted to do, and I did get a few pieces of silver ore as mementos of my visit to Calico.

As Interstate 15 exited Las Vegas, the speed limit jumped from 65 to 75! Back in Washington, the maximum speed is only 70, so this 75 speed limit was new to me. Did I go over 75 like most drivers seemed to be doing? No. My fuel tank was emptying fast enough as it was, thank you very much. I guess those people who were tootling along at 80 or 85 don't have a problem with the current price of gas.

Well, tomorrow, I'm in the home stretch. I'll be arriving in Salt Lake City before noon, hopefully to meet the Five For Fighting bus at The Depot when it arrives. I would love to see John one last time, if anything, to bid him goodbye as my road trip comes to a close. I can't believe it's all going to end...it's been so much fun! Tiring, but fun.