2/11/15 - Minneapolis, MN
It's cold. I mean, fucking cold. I
walked from my car to the restaurant and I'm pretty sure my right tibia froze.
Why does anyone live here? I need to look up the population of this entire state,
all of them are idiots. That's like, lots of five dollar bills.
Last night I drove in what
was described to me today as "freezing rain and one of the worst weather
conditions to drive in." Let me describe to you last night’s
driving scenario before I realized how bad of a situation I was really in:
First of all, finding the rental car's
at the Minneapolis/St Paul airport is as about as easy as finding the female G
spot. After wandering around that ridiculous airport for about 30 mins, I found
National. I walked out to the garage and surveyed my options: A Chevy Impala
(ugh) or a Dodge Ram the size of the airplane I just flew in on. I asked the
gal at the counter if they had any SUVs somewhere and she said "no but we
will later." Because hanging around this dump until “later”
is what I wanna do on a Monday night. $5, idiot.
The Chevy and I got on the freeway at about 7pm and
it was snowing, kinda. I started to realize that it was getting hard to see out
the windshield. This is what I now know is caused by freezing rain. I fumbled
around with various controls and knobs in Chevy and figured out the only
solution was clearing the windshield with wiper fluid every few minutes. I
wasn't sure what was happening, I'm from Southern California, so I just kept
driving. I used to think I got my best thinking done while driving long
distances. This is the biggest lie I've ever told myself. Here are a few things
that crossed my mind last night:
“Why does ice keep forming on my windshield?
This is annoying.”
“Ooooo, a White Castle! I need to
remember to stop there tomorrow on my way back.”
“Was that gas station really called
Pump and Munch? That's inappropriate.”
“I wonder if Bruce Jenner has picked
his female name yet.”
(flipping through the XM radio
stations) “I wonder if I should put on one of Jesus station's. This
weather is brutal and who knows what may happen, I need some points, just in
case.”
After three hours of this non sense (and
no washer fluid left) I made it to Duluth and the Hampton Inn. I slid into my parking
spot, checked in and immediately went in search of Neon Lights. I schlepped
through the snow and found me a nice bar. They had late night happy hour and a
bartender that look and acted like Screech from Saved By The Bell. I sat down,
ordered me a beer and then this walked in:
She sat down and ordered the following
items: a rum and coke, a Miller High Life and a side of ranch. She was a drunk
mess. She finished the rum and coke and moved onto the miller high life. I
wanted so desperately to stay long enough to watch her shoot the ranch (clearly
that was her next move) but it was late so I walked in the snow back to the
Hampton, went to sleep and dreamt of chicken wings.
2/17/15 (finally getting around to finishing this)
After my appointment the next day, I
drove back to Minneapolis. The good news is, I could actually see out the
windshield, the bad news is, I forgot to stop at White Castle. I had the evening
to myself so I went out to eat at a steak joint that was pretty rad. It was
packed but I managed a seat at the bar, got me a steak sandwich and chatted up
the lady next to me. She mentioned that the weather that night was going to be
the coldest they had in months. She was right. It was -22 with wind chill as I
walked to my car. This is what that hell looks like:
The next day I flew to LAX so that I
could drive to Santa Barbara. I was so happy when I walked outside to catch the
rental car shuttle and felt the warm air hit me. Then, some crazy Asian lady
almost hit me and two taxi drivers were getting into a fist fight. I loved LA
for about 2 minutes, that’s a record.
Santa Barbara is amazing. I was
fortunate enough to get to stay at a pretty fantastic place right on the beach
so I could attend an insurance thing. I had been in the frozen tundra for four
days and was completely exhausted but decided I was going to enjoy myself, even
for just a few hours before the long drive home. After our meeting, I went to the pool and laid out,
soaked up the vitamin D (and a Moscow mule or two) then walked down to the beach for the sunset. As I sat
in the sand and inhaled the warm sea air, I remembered how lucky I was to be
able to end my work week in a place people only dream of. Honestly, I doesn’t
get much better than this:
After that I cursed the entire 5 hour drive home through LA to San Diego.
The
end.
