Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. Part 5 of series. Descending to WeHo!

Be sure to have read at least Part 3 and Part 4 of this series before reading this entry to fully enjoy the story. 

We woke up fairly early New Year's morning despite having stayed out fairly late at local bars celebrating New Year's Eve. I don't recall where we went other than I was mostly outside drinking and smoking cigarettes, something hard for me to fathom now as an adamant ex-smoker. I first started smoking on/off sneaking into woods during cross country in middle school at Cranbrook. I was roughly 14, so way too young! By the time we were in 'upper school' we were actually allowed to smoke on campus in designated areas. When I moved to New Jersey and went back to public school at Morristown High School, I think we could smoke outside; either way, we just left campus at lunch anyway... My first year at Concordia University in Montreal you could smoke in class, and tellers at the bank and postal workers would be smoking. Then Quebec caught on albeit French Canadians loved their tabac. Each of the states were "evolving" on their policies on smoking at the time as well. This makes me sound ancient, but I am talking policies that have evolved in the early lifespan of Millennials (1980-1996). It has been roughly10 years since I quit smoking. I had quit a couple of times and the last time I started I shortly thereafter had a pulmonary embolism from a DVT in my leg that almost killed me. There is no saying this was directly caused by smoking, but they still don't know exactly what caused it (people with HIV are more likely to have DVTs, there are a couple of other possibilities), but it was a damn good excuse to say farewell once and for all. Nothing like a few days in an ICU, 3 in a regular room, so a week in total as forced "rehab" going cold turkey to walk out and never consider a cigarette again.

Back to January 1, 1997...

The Volvo had lousy pick-up but it held speed and the road incredibly well. So it was a wimp of a car entering the freeway but it held pace with most once going. We were flying along I-10 at 80-90 mph from the time we left Phoenix right up to the CA border. I remember the excitement approaching as if we had hit our new frontier. It was dampened when we had to stop for what I refer to as "CA Customs." In my experience prior and most often since, they just wave you along. But today, for whatever reason, they decided to stop and ask us questions. In hindsight, it was not a big deal. They were only interested if we were bringing plants from DC primarily. At the time, I was rather incensed about it. My republican ex went on a rant about the waste of taxpayer money the whole effort was, which in this case I concur. I suggested he jump right on contacting Sacramento about it. 

Driving into California on I-10, especially in the late 90's, is very anti-climatic. Driving along this open desert it is hard to grasp you have entered the land of 40 million inhabitants, the 5th largest economy in the world (it was 32.2 million in 1997). In fact, for nearly the 1st hundred miles you might be more focused on your gas gauge and hopefully have (at that time) enough CDs to tide you over until you get at least radio reception from Palm Springs. It remains fairly undeveloped today, although the Coachella Valley has expanded, especially with Indian casinos out to the freeway, and there are multiple solar projects along the route and perhaps a couple more service areas. Still the same, it is a long, uninteresting, drive until the Coachella Valley, which even then shows only limited signs of "life." The Tower at Morongo Resort and Casino had yet to be built and Cabazon Outlets did exist, just they were a fraction of the size. The communities leading to the San Gorgonio pass were still very small in 1997. They were hardly extended suburbs of the IE or greater LA depending on how want to categorize them. That came later after the housing boom in early 2000s leading up to the Great Recession. That growth is no more shown than when you cross over into the pass and are in the Inland Empire. In 1997, the "IE" was beginning to grow, but it began to explode after "Y2K." (I was part of  that growth for a brief period as you will read later). Redlands has homes on the hills, more now than in 1997, that you see from the freeway. You pass signs for University of Redlands and there are its more charming aspects (the center of town is quite quaint). But the rest is suburban bliss with strip malls and auto dealers from the freeway all of which have only expanded in numbers and size since my move to the SoCal.

I don't recall (and for purposes of just a blog entry am I not going to research) when the 210 connect was put in but I am certain it was not there in 1997 so I-10 was the only true direct route into LA. You could, as you still can now, drop down CA-60 but it comes with what I feel are treacherous roads in any kind of weather or extreme darkness as you come down the mountain into the IE and nowadays (less so in 1997) traffic into and around Riverside, let alone again in Ontario and other parts of the route, are unpredictable so it's a guessing game as to which is better. I have one friend in particular with whom we often debate the topic, neither of us being right or wrong. Ontario is in the Cucamonga Valley which has become a major distribution hub. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are not far to the west. It is the central location to send things out by truck, plane and train across the country. Originally, it was the original and largest wine country in California. There was still some in existence in 1997, virtually none today. I don't recall seeing much in either signage or noticing crops of vines on the drive in, but by this point my focus was notifying the agents that we were arriving, neither of whom were prepared for our descending on New Year's Day. Rhoda abdicated responsibility onto the listing agent and tried to lay another guilt trip but this time I wasn't falling. I had driven 3000 miles across country, had 2 constipated cats in the car (they didn't like using the litter when car was moving), and was generally over the road trip, never mind I was excited as hell at settling into our new place in WEHO! The listing agent didn't return my call for hours. I later learned he was at a party. Knowing him afterwards, I can guess the type of party and how difficult it might have been to pull away, let alone clean up and make yourself presentable. Thankfully, I had a cell phone, which were not terribly common then, but nor was I. A friend from Cranbrook recently said in a Facebook post "you were always a trailblazer." That provided one of the happiest moments of self-reflection in 2020. 

It wasn't for about 4 or 5 hours after our getting to West Hollywood that we were let into our new place. That will be the next entry...