After Midnight at Magic Mountain

The plan— our revised plan— for Friday night was simple. We'd repack our bags after Hawk got home from work, load them up in our convertible (instead of the SUV, which is our park-it-at-the-airport vehicle), and drive to Valencia, California, in the northern reaches of the Los Angeles metro area. That would set us up well for starting our LA car shopping at a dealer right there in Valencia that has some cars we're interested in. But then holiday weekend traffic hit.

It's a drive of about 320 miles. Sans traffic it would take less than 5 hours. When we left the house at 6:30pm map apps were already showing an estimated time over 5:30. Adding a stop for dinner we'd get in after midnight. While not ideal that's not bad. But reality was worse.

Traffic ground to a halt leaving Gilroy. Like, come to a full stop and sit for 30 seconds at a time. Roll forward 1-2 car length, stop again. FWIW this area is always a problem on Friday nights. At the start of holiday weekends it's routinely terrible. And this weekend, experts say, is supposed to be the biggest travel weekend in 2 years.

After spending 20 minutes to drive ½ mile we bailed out and tried another route. It wasn't as bad but was still... bad. By the time we reached I-5 we were almost an hour behind schedule.

I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley is become more of a shit-show on weekends. Traffic slowdowns happen every few miles because of heavy traffic and slow trucks trying to pass each other. Then there were additional jams behind accidents. One had traffic down slowed down to the basically "parked" situation we experienced in Gilroy. By midnight, when we were hoping to be at the hotel, we were still 120 miles away!

Ultimately it was almost 2:30am when we arrived at our hotel off Magic Mountain Parkway in Valencia, so named because it's near the Magic Mountain amusement park. We checked in, wound down, and got to sleep sometime after 3am. Thankfully the blackout shades in the room work well because I was not ready to get up with my 8am alarm. We slept in 'til 9:30am and still didn't feel refreshed. Ah, well, time to start the day anyway. We've got shopping to do!

Car Shopping Mostly a Bust

Our re-planned holiday weekend trip to go car shopping is mostly a bust so far. After arriving at the edge of Los Angeles way late last night (really 2:30am this morning) we slept in and didn't roll from our hotel room until around 11am. By then I'd already found that one of the cars we wanted to check out is in the shop for reconditioning. It's not drivable right now. Oops. And another car that we really liked the look of sold yesterday afternoon. D'oh! But there was still a dealership with some new models of the vehicle we were looking for— and that was our main impetus for making this trip down to LA!

Before venturing to the new car lot we decided to give our old car some added curb appeal. Y'know, in case we found a car we wanted to buy and thus also wanted to negotiate the best price for our trade in. Here's the before picture:



This is "Hawkgirl" parked outside the hotel. I mentioned in the previous entry it's next to Magic Mountain theme park. You can see some of the rides in the distance.

Fortunately we found a great full-service car wash only a few miles away. Although we selected one of the less expensive wash options, the shop did a fantastic job. Hawkgirl positively sparkled. Update: I took an 'after' picture later in the day:



As we rolled onto the dealer's lot another few miles away my thesis for getting our car cleaned up nicely was proven. Another couple shopping for a car saw us get out of Hawkgirl and started asking questions about her. A few minutes later when we were talking to a salesman, I mentioned that our potential trade-in parking outside already had prospective buyers showing interest!

Alas, the dealer's inventory was not what we hoped it would be. Of 4 cars listed on their website we wanted to look at, 3 were still "in transit". Only one was actually available— and it was the least interesting one to us, because it's a color we both dislike. Yes, we should have called ahead. 😣 But... make lemonade out of lemons, right? We still test-drove the car, a 2021 BMW 230i convertible, to learn more about the model and some of the options packages, and we liked it. Now we have more confidence that the 230i is the model we want. We just have to find the right color, and the right options, at the right price.

Shopping is Hard, Let's Go Swimming

Our first foray in LA for car shopping was a bust. One car was sold, one was in the shop, and 3 were still TBD— to be delivered. Only one car on our short list was available to test. So what did we do? Well, after testing that one car we ate a late lunch (our schedule is still lagging from driving last night until after 2am this morning) and then checked into our hotel to use the pool.



The weather down here in the northern suburbs of LA is great today. The temperature's about 80° F (27° C) and it's sunny. That's a perfect time to use the pool!

Swimming in the pool and soaking in the hot tub was a bit of a novelty. We have a pool and hot tub in our townhouse community, but they have been closed for 14 months due to the pandemic and won't be reopening until at least mid June. Ahh, getting back to normal!