I’m writing this just hours before kickoff of the Rose Bowl game. I might wish the Ducks good luck, except my family are staunch Oregon State supporters and would drive me from the family estate with hurled stones if they caught wind of me aiding or abetting any U of O activities. So you’re on your own, Ducks.
You always hear what a big deal it is to get to the Rose Bowl, but I was just there a week ago or so, and I have to say, it’s really not that hard. I wasn’t even trying.
I was driving the Winnebago north for Christmas, towing my Toyota truck, so that makes me roughly 50 feet long, considering 29-feet of Winnebago, plus the truck and tow bar. And that’s a lot of long when you’re merging over to make your exit in traffic. And if I ever catch the son of a witch who pushed me off my exit, forcing me south toward Los Angeles, I fear for him. I do. I would recognize those headlights anywhere. And there are many, many tortures I wish to visit upon you, you dog.
So anyway, there I was in the holiday spirit, asking Santa to let me apply a crowbar to every joint belonging to that jackass driver who, in retrospect, I should have just side-swiped and laughed while watching his car burn in my rearview mirror . . . but I took the first exit to double back and get another shot at my onramp.
Took a right. And another. Then wondered why there were bleachers facing the street I was on. Lots of bleachers facing the street. Odd. Until I saw “Parade Route” signs and remembered I was in Pasadena.
Then I ended up in the parking lot of the Rose Bowl. And took that picture you see here.
Later, I would ask directions from a lady walking her dog on how the hell to get out of here, and she told me, and I quote: “Oh, it’s not hard at all. Go up here, take a right at the first electric stoplight, and it’ll put you on the freeway.”
Electric stoplight? As opposed to, say, candle power? I didn’t get that, but followed her directions and went for miles through neighborhoods, finally saw a discrete sign promising the freeway, then all hell broke loose.
I thought I was rolling up to an onramp, but then it looked like one of those inspection stations where they ask if you have any live plants in your car.
But it was a security checkpoint, with guard booths, and a man ran out waving his flashlight at me, ordering me to stop. Here, then, is a transcript of our chat:
“Back that thing out of here, this is a government facility…”
“I’m just looking for the freeway.”
“Well, you missed it, it’s two streets back. Turn that thing around and get it out of here.”
Turning a Winnebago around with two lanes of room is not possible unless you have a helicopter or a crane. He wouldn’t let me go through his gate to turn around and I was sworn to never, ever, try backing up with a car on a tow bar behind a Minnie Winnie. The tow bar manual was adamant about this. Something to do with automatic, cataclysmic jack-knifing of the vehicle, the seas boiling and the sky raining blood.
“I can’t back it up.”
He didn’t believe me. People were going by flashing their security clearance and he was waving them through while losing his shit.
I explained I could unhook the truck and then turn the Winnebago around Austin Powers-style, pulling a little bit forward, a little bit back, until I heaved her around.
“O boy, what a mess . . . what a mess . . . if an emergency happens and you’re plugging up the entrance, I’ll . . . O boy, what a mess . . .”
It occurred to me then that this resembled a not-very-good action movie where I was supposed to gain entrance to a government facility by pulling up in a motor home, playing the rube and regrettably insisting I must get past the gate to turn around, thereby fooling the security guard and somehow stealing top secret information or plans to a rocket.
He’d seen the same movie and wouldn’t let me near the gate. I was, in fact, a rube who was insisting I couldn’t turn around without going past his gate first, and thankfully I didn’t get tasered and he seemed to believe I was just a dumbass who missed the freeway onramp, not a threat to national security.
So I set a world record for unhooking a Toyota Tacoma, doing four burnouts in a Winnebago to turn it around in a tight space, then re-hooking a Toyota and getting the hell out of there.
And that was my evening in Pasadena. Hope it goes better for you, Ducks.
2 comments:
Hah... I had a similar experience. That's how all that custom body work got done on the passenger side.
You should have stayed and partied in Old Towne Pasadena for an evening since you already had lodging. It's a blast with tons of entertainment.
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