From the streets of Sacramento to the freeways of LA

Next step: drive everything to Southern California.

There are not a lot of inconspicuous places to park a 26-foot truck overnight. Because of this, I decided to leave it parked where we had loaded it, so I had to walk over and get it Wednesday morning. I got into the truck at 5 am, started the ignition, and Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride immediately leaped from the radio speakers, the intro part with the whammy bar. It seemed like an enthusiastic way to start the day.

Rolling out. The fully-loaded truck did not handle like a Magic Carpet.

John suggested that I pick him up in the parking lot of the local Safeway Grocery, because "it might be difficult to maneuver" in the small parking lot outside of his apartment. 

We headed south on Interstate 5, and drove the entire length of the Central Valley.

Eventually the sun rose.

John, my co-pilot, early in the trip.

Gas stop at Santa Nella is not as much fun if you have to go to the truck stop next door.

The truck stop had Squirmles.

We went up and over the Grapevine Pass.

As we approached the pass from the north, the pavement changed, and became the more resistant concrete, with a wave pattern embedded in the road. Unfortunately, the wheel base of the 26-foot U-Haul truck must have been an exact resonant frequency with the ripples in the road. The truck started to buck back and forth, violently, as we ascended the grade. It was like riding a very tame mechanical bull, with seatbelts. The steering wasn't affected too much, but it certainly made conversation interesting. The bucking pavement continued until we were south of LAX, a distance of almost 90 miles.

Our destination was the Port of Los Angeles, in San Pedro. This is actually quite a bit south of Los Angeles proper.

There's the port!

The Vincent Thomas Bridge to Terminal Island.
Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

We're headed down into that mess. Suddenly my truck doesn't feel so big anymore.

We go to the left.

We unloaded our gear at the Southern California Marine Institute (SCMI), on Terminal Island, where it will sit until we and the gear go over to Catalina Island next Monday. I had told them on the phone that we would get there around 2 pm, and, incredibly, I walked in the door at 1:59 pm. They were impressed.

Unloading was pretty straightforward.

... even with only 2 people.

"I'm a physicist," John said, "so I know about leverage. Plus, I'm wearing high μ shoes."

Stacked at SCMI, waiting for our departure on the boat next Monday.

Unloading literally took 1 hour, from the moment I walked in the door until we washed our hands when we were finished muscling the crates around.

When planning all of this out, I wasn't too excited about the prospect of tooling around the Los Angeles basin for the weekend in a big truck with a zebra on the side. I mean, it's fun to tool around town and get lots of attention, but perhaps not practical. My limited experience parallel parking the truck had been exhilarating and fun, but again was not practical. I had decided I would prefer something smaller, cheaper, with better fuel economy, more maneuverable, sportier, and with more pickup. The next step was to go get a rental car and then return the truck.

Everyone looks very confused when you pull up to the airport in a U-Haul.

It turns out that when you rent a car at the airport, the rental car agents have no idea what to do if you did not arrive on a flight. They just kind of freeze up, and you can see that their minds, and their computer systems, have rarely processed this kind of situation before, perhaps never. Airlines don't fly people in 2 hours before their reservation, so that they show up early. It's even worse when you explain that "Oh, that's my U-Haul out there. I just drove up in that." The rental agent offered to let me pull the truck into the Enterprise lot, instead of just illegally ditching it in a bus stop, as we did. I looked at the narrow turnstile, thanked her, and declined.

Big trucks in unusual places entitle the operator to a certain amount of combined arrogance and sheepishness: "Hey, here I come in my vehicle which is outrageously oversized for the Passenger Pickup area. I want to be safe and make these turns without running over the petunias, but that means that I'm going to have to pull out slowly and block 3 lanes for a second. I'm sorry, guys. I know you're impatient. No, I can't make it under the 7-foot-high clearance for covered parking."

They gave me a 2012 Ford Focus with 2000 miles on it. It has about 60 buttons on the steering wheel, and the car automatically engages with my cell phone in some kind of bluetooth union. It was so clean that I felt bad just sitting in the seat. I'm pretty sure I'm the first person to eat food inside that car--I carefully saved my apple core in a plastic bag. It's black, and the paint glows with a strange inner light.

John flew back this morning, Thursday, at the crack of dawn. Literally. I heard it. I drove him to the airport in the Ford Focus, feeling sporty and slick and very underdressed in my pajamas. It really does take me a while to get the hang of using brand new things.

We get on the boat and leave for the island in 4 days.