Hollywood before Palmdale

My flight from OKC to Denver was largely uneventful. Likewise from Denver to Burbank.

As I never really paid much attention to the actual location of Burbank with respect to the greater Los Angeles area, I only yesterday realized it was near Hollywood. And so I emailed a close friend that lives in North Hollywood to see if we could do lunch before I had to head off to work. In a case of what must be my best timing ever, she called me to confirm our lunch as I was at the rental car counter in Burbank (i.e. minutes from hitting the road). This is significant because she had just then checked her email to find my message waiting, AND she left her cell phone at a friends the previous afternoon, thus missing my follow-up text message sent while I was waiting for my connection in Denver. Had she called even a few minutes later I might have been on the road to Palmdale (my actual destination).

So she and her husband met me for lunch and some catching up at a restaurant just outside Universal Studios. It was a great time. Hadn't seen her in about six months, since she was last in OKC, and hadn't seen her husband, with whom I have much in common, in probably a couple years. I would have stayed longer, but was so advised that traffic between Hollywood and Palmdale would get very nasty, very soon if I didn't get on the road. And so I did. The irony of the afternoon is that we opted for the "cheaper" valet parking only to end up overstaying the time limit of the valet rates, thus costing us more than had we just used standard parking.

For the second time in as many weeks, my rental was an SUV. I found this ironic for California, but as I drive an SUV myself at home, it was a welcome coincidence from the comfort perspective, given it's about an hour drive from Hollywood to Palmdale in good traffic conditions. While I did experience some traffic bottleneck issues jumping from the 170 to the 5, I think I missed the worst of it, as I got to Palmdale in decent time.

I'm very annoyed at myself because I downgraded my hotel unnecessarily. I didn't realize Palmdale was in Los Angeles county, and so I booked a super cheap hotel (Days Inn) instead of what I could have gotten (e.g. Residence Inn down the street). The per diem for LA is higher than for the surrounding area, and so I am in self-imposed exile. The Days Inn I stayed in last week while in Rapid City was quite decent. This week... not so much. I mean, I've been in worse, but this place, I'm not so sure about. My present annoyance is v-e-r-y s--l--o--w wireless internet. Bleh.

Just after the slow internet annoyance lies my eating selection annoyance. I'm so darn tired (been up since four-something a.m. OKC time (and presently it's almost midnight there) that I got lazy, and instead of looking for some good eating to satiate not only my appetite but my "expense account", I opted for the McDonald's across the street. For my ten bucks the five-piece chicken strip meal seems... kind of a rip.

Oh, and HOLY FREAKIN GAS PRICES! The cheapest I've seen so far in the area is 3.19. I hear it's worse in SF, but jeez. 2.47 in OKC isn't seeming so bad at the moment.