This summer I found myself spending most of my weeks in Laguna Beach, California. Originally, I was going to write this post about the beach and all the clichés that come with it, but rarely do we write about the endless freeways, the express lanes that somehow still manage to get backed up, or the days where the mountains can’t be seen in the smog.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the directions from my mom’s house in Redlands to Laguna. She lives 60 miles away, so ideally it should take an hour of driving to get there, or much less if you drive 85 mph until you see a cop. But in true Southern Californian fashion, as of 6:35 AM Pacific, it takes an hour and 53 minutes to get to Laguna on the CA-91. It takes two hours and 16 minutes on the I-10.
With my driving record, I rarely drove, which left me with hours of staring at charred trees from one of the many forest fires on the toll roads to Irvine. The traffic extended to the toll roads. Imagine paying to sit in traffic. The canyon into Laguna is much worse: the two-lane highway narrows into one lane, and suddenly everyone forgets how to merge. But the canyon is also one of the prettier sights on the drive through, its dried grass giving off a golden glow. I always try to reach for the sunflowers on the side of the road, but I have yet to succeed.
It would be a lie to say I don’t mind the traffic, but I can appreciate it slowing down my life just enough to look at things I normally speed past. –Tanya