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Preparation, preparation, preparation. That's the key. Unfortunately, it's not my middle name. My drive from SF to LA got off to a shaky start - and that's after I finally managed to hire a car.
I'd forgotten 2 minor points.
1) I've never driven an automatic, and
2) I've never used satnav
Ever the optimist (and activist) though, I thought I'd learn on the job. First problem - no key, I had no idea how to switch on the engine. Eventually, I found an on/off button - how mad is that? It turned out that I needed to push in the brake at the same time as pushing this button.
By the way, the rental places leave the keys in the car - where are all the car thieves....?
Anyway, I got out of the airport and to my first set of lights. I was there for a while so I thought I'd better put the parking brake on. Only it was the parking gear, and I couldn't work out how to get it off again. So, I was at the head of the traffic lights, holding up the traffic coming out of the airport - as you can probably guess, I seemed to be Mr. Popular, everyone was giving me a cheery wave as they drove past.
Then, I followed the satnav instructions - and ended up in whatever the SF equivalent of So. Central is (well, probably not, I didn't get carjacked after all). The problem was - the satnav wasn't actually giving me any instructions, and I realised after a while that it didn't know I was moving. I think it's reception was off - so it actually had less idea where it was than I did, which is saying something. After about three stops to read the instructions, I did the classic smack-it-switch-it-off-and-on-
again - it seemed to work fine after that.
So, after a bit of a false start, I finally got onto Highway 1 - woohoo! Some of it was fantastic - unfortunately I was scared to stop and take a photo in case I couldn't get the car started again. Driving Big Sur tomorrow, I hope there will be some good photo opportunities. Once I'd relaxed a bit, driving down the highway with Grandaddy on the stereo and the Pacific glinting to my right, I realised what a privilege this trip is.
Now staying at my first ever motel - Travelodge on N Fremont in Monterey, just in case anything 'filmic' happnes to me (thanks for that Louise). I had pastrami on rye for lunch - these things must be a cliche for a reason....
Have a nice day, y'all
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