After a quiet sleep Harris was up at 5 AM. This is what happens when he goes to bed early. After finding a Starbucks to update the blog, he looked at the map and decided that taking Route 23 over the mountains to the coast would make a nice early morning drive. Traffic in town was non-existent. It was a different story while on the 101 South to link up with 23. Traffic was zooming at above posted speed limit of 65. Harris felt like he was crawling along at 60mph. After leaving Westlake in the rear view, he had the winding 2 lane all to himself. The stars were out along with a bright moon. When stopped at a pullout, a lonely howl could be heard up in the canyon.
Stopping on Hwy 23 and hearing the coyote
As a general rule, houses were large and they were gated. There were several subdivisions of McMansions with a single gate restricting access to them. The lone vehicle Harris encountered on the 50 min. drive was a garbage truck making its rounds. The best views were from places where there was no place to pull off.
The exception to those LA hills homes
Why it took 50 mins to go 17 miles
The sun was up when he entered Malibu with temps around 40 degrees (they were in the 20’s going over the pass from Thousand Oaks) and it was shaping up to be a nice day. Harris pulled over for breakfast (oatmeal and an orange)and shared the ocean view with the multi -million dollar homes. Not a bad place to be!
Malibu just after sunrise (my breakfast spot)
! He then plugged in the first geocache and let TomTom direct him to Mulholland Drive. Harris has read many books (and watched a couple of movies) that featured this road which led to this geocaching expedition. He found 6 along the drive. Unfortunately the clouds were coming in with the next storm and combined with the haze, it was not a good day to take pictures.
More of a typical "hills" house
The drive was still very much worth it and he’d do it again in a heartbeat. One thing is for certain about L.A. Everything is possible with money and there is plenty of money (or perhaps deficit spending) in Los Angeles.
Almost the entire back yard is on stilts!
He saw impossibly huge houses, weird dogs leading their masters along the many trails on this drive, and many many Mercedes, BMW’s, and exotic sports cars when he pulled over to cache or let the cars by so he could enjoy the views. It was almost 2:30 now and he wanted to beat the traffic out of town so he called it quits and headed east on I-10. It was so windy in Palm Springs that he continued on to Indio where it was much calmer (although it’s been picking up as I’ve been writing this).
An aspiring Michigan actor (w/SAG card) who has good taste in vehicles
Harris pulled off when he saw a McDonalds sign and stumbled upon his favorite store—Winco. After asking inside if he could park overnight, he purchased a pre-cooked chicken and chief’s salad and had a great dinner. After showering in Howie, he started working on what you read here. Time to sign off and finish the rum and coke!
Howie in Hollywood!
High temp in LA was 57 degrees
High temp for me was in Indio of 64 at 6PM
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