What a horror day!
THE PHONE SAGA
Had to ring the LA office of El Monte RV (the company I’m relocating the motorhome for) between 8.30 and 9.30am to confirm pick up in the arvie or have booking cancelled. Also had to shower, pack up, eat brekkie, and have a quick moment on the internet Hotel before checking out at 10am of the Stay Hotel. Or so I thought – had I read my booking info correctly, I didn’t have to check out until 12noon. But I did still had to ring El Monte by 9.30am.
Of course I still haven’t worked out the new global sim for my mobile – I think I need to buy a more modern phone for it to work – and had to go in search of a public phone. So, at 8.45am I found two public phones around the corner and neither worked, but still managed to eat my coins before I discovered this and the last one connected me through to emergency medical aid …
Back to the hotel to see how much it would cost to ring from the phone in my room (I know, why didn’t I think of that before?) and was told it would be a long distance call as it was in another part of LA. Instead the receptionist sold me a phone card for $5 and during the convo, I mentioned how I had to ring by 9.30am and was getting a bit anxious as it was now after 9.15am. Up to my room to ring using my brand spanking new phone card and the bloody phone wouldn’t give me a line out or even let me ring the receptionist.
Back downstairs again to find out why the phone wouldn’t work – and can you believe it – she said she hadn’t unlocked the phone!! She just sold me a phone card to use on the room phone and knew I had to make a call asap and she didn’t think to unlock the phone? Aye curumba! By now it is after 9.30am (it’s a long journey from my room to reception) and I am in a bit of a flap.
Finally, back up to my room and now I can make a call, say I’m confirming my booking for today for a pickup to San Francisco and the stupid b*tch at El Monte tells me I have to call a different number. I ring the other number and it is the San Francisco office and no, they don’t want to talk to me at all, I do need to call the LA office – which I had. Ring the LA number again and get the same girl, Bridget, and no apology from her.
THE SAGA OF GETTING TO EL MONTE'S
Then I find out their office is way out in the eastern suburbs and, no, they only do a shuttle bus run to and from the airport, not Downtown LA. When I asked about public transport she had no clue, but offered to call me a cab. Knowing the distance involved I guestimated a cab would cost about $75 and this was confirmed with the hotel receptionist. To get to the airport for the $15 shuttle would cost another $7 plus mucking around. So, got out my handy Metro guide and spent $1.50 to get the metro to the end of the eastern line and a free transfer to a bus that took me 300 metres walking distance to El Monte.
What I have found in LA is that all service staff seem to want you to spend more bucks than you need to. Must be the secret LA game plan to boost the flagging economy.
OUTFITTING THE BEAST
Next I was sat down to watch a DVD of how to operate the motorhome in German. Had to go out and get the girl to play an English version for me. Maybe they thought I was German as they had my name recorded as Wildehhearg – although that sounds more like something the Swedish Chef from the Muppets would say. Wil-de-hherrrrg.
Next we had to sort out the costs and what extras I wanted. $50 for sheets, blanket, towels, pillow and one set of crockery and cutlery – I took that. They wanted $125 for cooking equipment, kettle and toaster – I said no thanks. And they will charge $75 bucks at the end to empty liquids and clean motorhome, or I can pay $25 now for them to do it at the end – I said no thanks, I’ll empty and clean it as I can pay $25 - $40 on my last night to stay at an RV campsite and empty everything then and enjoy the other site amenities at the same time, and spend a buck for some disinfectant to wipe everything down at the end.
MASTERING THE BEAST
After that I was taken out to the motorhome – all 28 foot of it, that’s about eight and a half metres long – to inspect it for damage and be given a walk though of how to operate the generator, gas, water pump, water heater, auxiliary power, toilet, fuel, etc and then how to empty all liquids at the end. She said the most important thing to remember was to fold up the step before taking off and if I do need to reverse, I should have someone guiding me (not just me, all drivers).
I thought to ask the chickibabe how to get onto the freeway from their yard and she said: “I don’t know”. Can you believe it? The motorway was right outside their office and she didn’t know how to get on it??? She then ‘very helpfully’ circled an area on my map (that mainly showed arterial roads and not too much detail) two or three times in heavy pen that blocked out any details now, and said, “You are here”.
After the chickibabe went back to the office, I sat in the motorhome for about 30 minutes trying to work out how to get out of LA and get onto the coastal highway. But first, I really needed to know how to get on to the nearest motorway from where I was as one does not want to be driving aimlessly in LA traffic in an unknown area in a very long motor home.
So, I went inside and asked a guy and he google mapped it and printed out directions and ran me through them.
That was the easy bit.
HERDING THE BEAST OUT OF THE YARD
By now it was 2.30pm and time to get that baby started and head off in it on the wrong side of the road and try to dodge peak hour highway mania.
As I sat in the driver’s seat, I wondered if it was too late to cancel the whole thing and go back to the nice Stay Hotel for another night or two and get a bus to San Francisco.
But I thought I had better suck it up and get on with it so off I went. Like the directions said, I turned left, then left again, crossed over a couple streets, crossed over 166th St and then missed the ramp onto the highway. Can you believe it? One minute out on my journey and already I had f*cked up. All I could do was keep going until the next street and crack a rightie hoping to go around the block and come out for a second attempt from the other direction. Only flaw was that the second turn led me into a dead end street. Now I had to do the one of the two main things she told me to avoid. I had to man-handle that monster into a three point turn that included REVERSING in a small residential street.
Little did I know at the time, but I had also done the very first and very important thing I shouldn’t do. Yep, I had driven off with the step down, and I didn’t find that out until I pulled in for the night FIVE HOURS later. I was sure she had put it up as part of her demo … I don’t like to think of all the dangerous situations and expensive repairs that could have happened had it snagged on anything like other cars and road work barriers etc Crikey, that’s nightmare material!
So now I am on Highway 605 heading south a tad to get onto Highway 105 West and then Highway 405 North to around the main traffic cutting through the main highway across town. Whizzing along at 55 miles per hour and still the slowest vehicle. All is going fine until the traffic builds, and slows to a 5mph crawl for nearly TWO HOURS. It took me five hours to travel 100 miles.
Did I mention that for some strange reason (probably just to boggle newbie drivers of large motorhomes) it is nearly impossible to stay in the slow right hand lane? I quickly mastered knowing the road markings for entering and exiting lanes from the freeway, but would suddenly find myself in the middle lanes of the freeway - surrounded by irate drivers because I was only doing 55mph - because some genious suddenly added a lane or two on the right and I hadn't noticed I was unexpectedly thrown into the thick of the fast traffic flow.
PARKING FOR THE FIRST NIGHT
Totally stressed out, knackered, and sporting a fierce headache by 7.30pm I pulled off the highway and found a supermarket carpark at a little place called Oxnard, just short of my target of Ventura. Pulled in and the monster took up two entire car parks. I parked at the far end of the carpark, right near a hire car place and tried to pretend that the beast was just another hire car sitting there, waiting to be hired as I wasn't sure whether parking there overnight was quite legal. Anyhoo, bought some food for my travels at the discount supermarket (everything was a $1) and decided to eat at the Burger King there as well because I hadn’t eaten anything since the small bowl of cereal at the hostel about 9.45am. Back in the beast by 8.30pm and in bed by 8.45pm as I was not going a foot further.
I was too tired to even try pushing the right button to operate the water pump so I could brush my teeth or flush the toilet. Gee, it’s great to have my own toilet that is always handy – unless you are on the highway and can’t find anywhere to legally pull over on the highway when you need to go. But it does seem weird to be going to the toilet when there are people walking around the motorhome ie in the carpark.
And on that note, that’s more than enough for today.
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