Greetings from Ontario
(no, not that Ontario), where the breakfast at this Best Western will be getting
a highly positive review on Yelp. They even had sriracha for the
hipsters.
Yes, that's ramen that
Matt's eating. And, yes, he's also drinking a beer. At 8:30 in the
morning.
Yesterday started in
Oakland, where we left Tanya's around 10am to make our way down to Chino Hills.
Matt needed to be picked up LAX at 7:30pm (or 9:30pm depending on your
perspective), which didn't leave Tanya and I enough time to drive down the
coast along Highway 1. Instead, we got on the monstrosity that is I-5 and
headed south through the central valley. The record drought you've heard
about is real. The entire trip consisted of nothing but dry, dusty fields
punctuated by the occasional green tree or weed. Tanya commented that it
looked like a black and white movie except it was brown.
To pass the time, Tanya
got me caught up on all the latest pop music and confidently declared it the
summer of the booty. And she was
right. Every song we heard talked about
skin tight jeans and shaking hips.
Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, and some sensitive guy pleading with his
woman to stay with him were a few of the ones I remember. All in all, though, I was much less impressed
with this year’s offerings compared to the pop songs Tanya educated me about
last summer.
Having given up on the
radio, Tanya thumbed through my CD collection and quickly declared all of it to
be “white people music.” Imagine her
surprise when she stumbled upon my Stevie Wonder CD. Imagine her surprise when she learned that he, too, was
from Saginaw. Imagine her skepticism when I tried to
convince her that I – tone deaf and rhythmically challenged – taught him
everything he knows.
It was sometime after this
conversation that she decided to curate an exhibit of me stuffing my face. I give you all 16 pieces:
I got my revenge by
taunting her with my toilet
sunglasses, repeatedly putting them in my mouth and reminding her that I
haven’t washed them since the unfortunate incident in Wyoming.
It struck us both that
despite being on the road for 3 or 4 hours, we still hadn't come across any
tourist traps worthy of our attention.
That’s when she consulted http://www.roadsideamerica.com/ and found us this gem of a fiberglass
animal, which she perfectly described as a mutant mix of a cow and a
sheep.
Time was getting late,
so we hopped back into the car and high-tailed it down 5 to 210 on our way to
Chino Hills, hitting a few traffic back-ups along the way and seeing a few
familiar sites in Pasadena. We
eventually made it to town, where Tanya took me to the courts where she
developed her wicked two-handed backhand.
We then made it to her parents’ house, where I was warmly greeted by her
dad and two sisters. They packed
provisions for me for the road, including some Thai sticky rice and mango. Thank God they didn't offer me any durian.
We said our
goodbyes and I made my way to LAX, where Matt kept me waiting for nearly two hours. He finally stumbled out onto the curb, loaded
his bags into my car Beverly Hillbillies-style, and we made our way to the
hotel in Ontario, where the day finally came to an end.
Today’s activities
include a drive through Joshua Tree National Park (that's the second boner joke of the trip for those of you keeping score) on the way to our first football game, Weber State
vs. Arizona State
at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. More pictures
and half-truths to follow.
I want to meet Tanya. I like her already.
ReplyDeleteFor an account with more truthiness, see veruminadventum.blogspot.com.
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