SFist Takes A Smoggy Bullet For You
You know, of course, that your friends at SFist want only the best for you, and that means never having to visit the giant beige error that is Los Angeles. We can't imagine what circumstances could compel you to leave our idyllic sanctuary of hippies and hipsters, but in the event of an Emergency - that is, having to go to LA - we want your visit to be pleasant. And of course, the only way to do that is by having a fun drive down. So come along with us, now, on a virtual tour of the wasteland to the south and the best methods for the traversing thereof.
You've got three options: the 5, the 101, and the 1. For this article, we drove down on the 5 and then hurried back up on the 101. We skipped the 1, even though it's gorgeous, because it takes about a full day to drive, and who, with our hasty modern lives, has that sort of time? Check Hotwired.com for cheap car rentals if you don't want to stick 600 miles on your adorable VW bug's odometer. We secured a compact car with Hertz for about $18 a day; picking up the car at SFO, rather than a city location, can sometimes mean a discount. Thanks to tandem flirting with the flustered Hertz rep, we were upgraded at no cost to an Aztec - basically an SUV with a huge ass - and we were off!
Here's the thing you've got to remember about the 5: it's preparing you for the cultural desolation of Los Angeles by subjecting you to desolation of a geographic nature. Flat, dusty, smoggy, empty, brown - don't expect many scenic pullovers. But if almonds and apricots are your thing, there are about a dozen nifty little farmstands along the 5 to keep your spirits aloft. One of the better stops is off of the Panoche Road exit - it looks like there's nothing there, but keep your eyes out for signs directing you to The Apricot Tree Restaurant. They serve American cuisine (our favorite kind!), and it's the kind of place you expect to be served by a sassy lady in a beehive hairdo named Ethyl. Er, the woman is named Ethyl, not the hairdo. The pie at the Apricot Tree is fantastic, as attested to by experts (pie experts). While you're there, don't miss the poignant sculpture of a dinosaur made of tractor parts. Fill up on gas, too, because your next chance won't come for another 35 miles.
Bring CDs with you on your drive. For the love of God, bring CDs. You must at all costs avoid mid-California radio. We were foolhardy enough to bring only two discs, and spent five hours in a hypnotic rotation between Snow Patrol, Frou Frou, and disappointing checks of the FM and AM. There are a few exceptions: outside of Fresno, we caught a rather overdone reading of "The Fall of the House of Usher" on 88.1; Patsy Cline made an appearance on 103.3; arguably alternative music showed up briefly on 104.1 (to which we refuse to link, due to excessive use of Java); and on 99.7 we heard a commercial for Proposition J, which was apparantly an attempt to bring tourism to Fresno by raising hotel taxes. The idea that tourists could be lured to Fresno, despite its many distinctions, strikes us as, well, adorable. Highly recommended is 90.1, which you'll only be able to catch toward the end of the drive. It featured back-to-back A-ha, Alkaline Trio, "Kids in America," Oingo Boingo, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode, and vintage Madonna - heaven! Yes, KZSU 90.1 FM Stamford, you most certainly can dress us up in your love.
About four hours into our drive, we found ourselves regarding Carl's Jr as a noteworthy attraction. "I imagine a lot of masturbation goes on around here," our traveling companion observed. Indeed. We passed an exit for Lost Hills - wasn't that a level in Zelda? The one where you'd just keep walking up the mountain in a relentless, endles loop? What a coincidence.
By the time we struggled into the San Fernando Valley, our souls had been crushed and our faith in all that is good and holy destroyed. We fit right in. Time to turn around and go back - only this time, we'll take the 101.
The first leg of a return trip up the 101 - aka The Ventura Freeway, because Jesse Ventura built the entire thing using only his incredible thigh muscles - is, praise Jeebus, pretty. Hello, Santa Barbara - look, ocean! Trees! Signs of life! Hooray! Nous crions: we cried. Or is that "we shouted"? Well, whatever, we were pretty excited to be leaving the 5, and to be no longer travelling by way of the dust bowl. But there is a tradeoff: the 101 is longer, and without the excitement of occasional farmstands. You get topography, but fewer stops. We hope you can handle that. It has a long and fascinating past, if you're the sort of person who is fascinated by freeway history. If you are, congratulations. If you're not, even more congratulations.
The approximate midpoints of both the 5 and the 101 are marked by Andersen's restaurants, renowned (they claim) for their pea soup. Andersen's is worth a stop simply for the megasuperoverdose of kitsch: the gift shop features creepy dolls, bizarre trinkets, year-round Christmas accoutrements, a mural of Danish kings, and more pea-soup-related decor than a healthy person ought to look at. The pea soup itself is watery and average - our sophisticated big-city palates were not impressed, and the soggy fries and canned cranberry sauce didn't help. Good ice cream, though. Nous crions pour la glace. Andersen's hosts weddings, so at last you can hold that pea-soup-themed wedding of your dreams.
Much of the rest of the 101 is devoid of incident, we're afraid. Take a break at well-maintained Pismo Beach (which is actually an entire city - oh, California, only you); glance at pretty San Luis Obispo; keep your eyes peeled as you drive through Monterey and maybe you'll be, as we were, lucky enough to observe two llamas engaged in the marriage act. Watch for a pretty impressive flea market in Gilroy - it's a giant barn full of crap that'll make your ironic hipster friends (that is to say, you) squeal with pleasure. The sign on the roof says "Disneyana," right next to a picture of Popeye - eh, close enough, they must've figured. (Now that we're coming up on the 10th birthday of Disney's last good movie, are flea markets going to start advertising Pixarana? Discuss.) Also: no trip through Gilroy - Earth's Garlic Capital, of course - would be complete without a visit to the dizzyingly stinky Garlic Shoppe. They've managed to insert garlic into every imaginable food item on the planet, so be careful - after just passing by, we were forced to place a moratorium on making out until we could find a toothbrush shoppe.
Pass though a few more mild hills and shallow dales, and soon enough you'll find your drive through the Weirdo State coming to a close; the brown haze of farm equipment will give way to the gloomy white of bay-area fog. "Was that it? Was it all a dream?" You might wonder. The answer is yes, of course it was - who the hell would build a freeway through a barren wasteland in order to carry people to a city where you spend most of your life sitting in traffic? Oh, it's good to be home. San Francisco ain't perfect - but there's nothing like a trip to the hinterlands to remind you of how good we've got it.
Some photos of our dreary trip south can be found in the author's (Contributor SFist Matt's) Flickr album.