May 30, 2001: The Countdown Begins… Escape from LA, Part 1

Escape from LA
by Roger Darnell

Wednesday, May 30, 2001: The Countdown Begins

As I sat at my desk at the end of the business day (night) on Tuesday, I knew I really needed to get some sleep to be ready to start loading the truck bright and early the next morning; surveying my office, though — still largely intact — it finally also sunk-in to me that I needed to get it packed, once and for all. Fast forward to 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning: I’d worked all the way through the night, the office was 98% done, the house was a scattered array of semi-packed boxes, furniture and closed boxes, all ready for the truck, and we were off to pick up the truck from Budget in Van Nuys on Sepulveda Blvd., the same place where we’d returned our truck from the 1998 move West. This truck was a little bigger — a sign that the move was a success? — and the car carrier, destined to transport our Honda Accord back across the country, may have been the same one we picked up from New Orleans on the previous trip. Beth had slept very little as well, so the recollection of truck-packing day is a little blurry. We were smart enough to request a couple of movers to come to our house at 9 to load the truck, and by 11, they were done. By 5 p.m., Read more

Jan. 5, 1998: Glad 2BN Glendale

And, indeed, it was lights-out for those cats at about 6:45 on Monday morning. Beth was having none of Callie’s hiding under the bed trick — went right in after her — and the carriers were soon stuffed and loaded into our barely-recognizable car, and we into our Isuzu Turbo huge-windowed cab, the accelerator mashed into its position against the floorboard and 60+ mph average began counting down the 370 miles separating us from the property we’d agreed to lease for the next twelve months. Arizona continued impressing us with multi-colored silhouetted mountainscapes, and Saguaro Cacti covering stretches of mountain range most other plants had given up on. We thought about stopping before Blythe at the border to California, to take a picture. By then, Beth had been driving for about 40 miles. The “Now Entering State of California and Western Time Zone” sign was in the middle of a bridge across a river — no room to stop. However, after another sign, “All Vehicles Must Stop Ahead,” we found plenty of parking space at an agricultural inspection station. Read more

January 4, 1998: Praising Arizona

It was 4 in the morning when Maggie woke me up to let me know Callie couldn’t sleep. I got up and played with them a bit, peeking out the window to see that our possessions were still ours, then climbed back into bed to make the most of the warm bed where, unbeknownst to me, Beth was having a nightmare. She had also been woken up and had seen me looking out the window, but then, she fell back asleep. In her dream, I turned to her from the window and said, “Well, we might as well get going,” and she’d gotten up and started packing, swearing under her breath, “I just want to sleep; why can’t he just sleep for awhile longer?” Read more

Jan. 3, 1998: Tex Take Two

At the free continental breakfast at the La Quinta (which in Spanish, according to a famous comedy routine, means Next to Denny’s), we met an older traveling salesman named Frank. As we spoke, he told me I need to get an agent in LA, and also that I’d do well to tie-into USC. People might not have much advice to offer if you move to many cities, but it seems almost everyone knows the recipe for success in LA. Frank seemed to have the handle on the basic ingredients, didn’t he? Bidding him adios, we loaded our cooler with more than our allotted number of free bananas, got in our truck and were on our way into our ‘hump-day’ — the day in our journey when we’d pass the half-way point. Read more

Jan. 2, 1998: Together in Texas

I won’t go into detail on the hours we spent standing at a payphone, having our patience strained by the customer service crew at the other end of Budget’s 800 service number. For the most part, we kept driving and stopping to check to see if they’d found us a new car carrier. Even doped-up on their kitty valiums, Callie and Maggie came out of their holes to sit in Beth’s lap and keep her company during her miles with them. Finally, we phoned in and found that a trailer had been located in New Orleans. If you look at your map, you’ll notice that New Orleans is a little out of the way of the westward trek, and that travelers with speed in mind would avoid it by taking Interstate 12, which reconnects with I-10 at Baton Rouge. But they’d found the trailer, so we aimed toward the Paris of the West, and made one more stop for Diesel fuel just after passing I-12. Read more

Jan. 1, 1998: Flaming in Florida

It’s March 21, 2010, a Sunday, a little over 12 years after I emailed the following report to our friends and family members, the first of five installments documenting our move to California. Neither Beth nor I had ever been west of Texas before that time, but we were up for LA and fun new times with the dawn of 1998. So much has happened since then, for us and everyone we’ve met on this journey. Over the days ahead, I’ll be posting the other notes from this trek, followed by the photolog of our 2001 move to the Blue Ridge Mountains. As much as ever, we are especially connected to the original recipients of these emails. Sadly, the cats we fussed over back then have passed on, along with many others near and dear to us. To our friends and loved ones reading this, we still love sharing life and good times with you, and we look forward to making wonderful new memories together. Rock on! Read more

July 8, 1985: Ask and Receive

I still clearly remember the time, place, circumstances, and even the paper that I wrote on, when I penned the following short poem over 24 years ago. I was headed to Champaign, Illinois, to complete the technical school component of my initial U.S. Air Force training. It was my first real freedom since my last previous airplane rides had delivered me from Orlando into Houston into San Antonio, whereupon my basic training promptly began. I recall finding it odd that I was scheduled to arrive on a Friday afternoon… but it was worse than I could have imagined. Read more