a long drive

The legendary surf music king, Dick Dale, is doing a farewell tour, and my friend Michele and I roadtripped down to see him perform.   We bought the tickets when we were both under the misimpression that San Juan Capistrano is near San Luis Obispo, on California's Central Coast.  We discovered later, to our dismay, that it was south of Los Angeles.

Oh, how the children laughed merrily at the stupidity of their dear mother.  "You have so far to drive!" jeered one, pointing at me and laughing deep, big belly laughs.  "How long?  Seven hours?

 Most of the drive was actually quite pleasant.  My friend and I chatted.  She read out loud outrageous quotations from Karl Lagerfeld.  We were fascinated by his breakfast routine:

The first thing I do when I get up, I have breakfast. I have two protein shakes made for me by my doctor--they have a chocolate taste and no sugar, of course—and steamed apples. That's all. I don't like anything else in the morning. I never drink anything hot; I don't like hot drinks, very strange. I drink Diet Coke from the minute I get up to the minute I go to bed. I can even drink it in the middle of the night, and I can sleep. I don't drink coffee, I don't drink tea, I drink nothing else.

We debated the steamed apples.  I felt that the best part of an apple is the crisp, satisfying crunch, and steaming the apple seemed insane.  Michele felt, on the other hand, that she enjoys baked apples and that a steamed apple could be good.  We agreed that we now feel compelled to steam some apples.  It must be done.

Around Los Angeles we, of course, hit traffic, and the last seventy five miles or so of our trip were a taste of stop and go freeway hell.  One of my contacts was irritating my eye, and I'd finished my giant bottle of water.  I kept reminding myself, "Just a few more miles."  But those miles took so long.  Finally we arrived at our hotel, where the sound of the freeway is always heard.  The weather is spectacular, the surf music was magnificent, Dick Dale is a wonder of the ages (but his son is not so great a drummer, clearly parental affection has clouded the eyes of the surf master).  Despite the jeers of the children, this is proving to be a delightful outing.