A Long Day

Yesterday was totally insane for me and an extremely long one at that. I had to fly up to Sacramento to pick up my work van. I got my work van from a co-worker who previously used it and got a new work van.

The security screening at the airport was such a drag. I hate it when they scrutinize you when you have a one way ticket. That is one thing I don't understand. They do the extra screening because of 9/11 but you would figure that if someone were to try it again, they would buy a roundtrip ticket since one way ticketers always get screened closely. Anyways, the plane took off at almost 1:15PM...the scheduled time was 12:45PM...you know how those airlines are. Arrived in Sacramento half an hour late! All in all, I finally got my van at 3PM and was headed to LA with an estimated time of 6 hours to get there.

Of course, I didn't think of the rain and gridlock. It was a downpour in Northern California. My windshield wipers barely kept up. There were traffic accidents everywhere and thus my 6 hour plan became almost 8 hours. 8 hours behind the wheel. It was insane. It also did wonders to me already aching back! The drive down was rather interesting at one point. A car rapidly approached me and flashed his lights while tailgating me. I had to speed up to 80 in order to pass the trucks in the right lane and find an opening between them. The car then took off at a high rate of speed. I thought that the guy was stupid and crazy to be speeding in a downpour and I wished that the highway patrol would nab a-holes like them.

Not 5 minutes later, another car rapidly approached mine while I was traveling at 75 MPH at a posted speed of 70 MPH. I figured that it was my luck that the car was the highway patrol and they're going to pull me over for speeding and not the guy that just passed me. Well, it was the highway patrol but he wasn't going after me. He was after someone else...yeah, the Honda that passed me earlier. Sure enough, about 5 minutes after the patrol car passed me, I saw the patrol car with the Honda on the side of the road. That really made my day. I was laughing so hard and was glad to see my tax dollars at work. I hope that cop threw the book at the Honda driver!

Anyways, the van I got is a 2002 Toyota Sienna and it is fully loaded. It has 101,000 miles but it is in pretty good operating condition. I am not surprised that a Toyota with that many miles still runs good. It would have been a miracle if an American van did that but not with a Japanese vehicle. I love that the van has controls on the steering wheel for the radio/CD player. The van even has climate controls. I guess the plan is for me to drive it for another 50,000 miles before the company issues me a new van. It's ok because I like this van.

Now my personal car can rest for a bit and not put down so many miles on it. I guess I'll use my car on weekends. Eventually, that car will be driven by my fiance after we are married. I love my personal car. It has comfort and power. I'm hoping it will last like my last car with over 200,000 miles on it with no major mechanical issues. Of course, the car is Japanese. I could never buy American again after the problems I had with two Chevys. They were both garage queens. I'm sure that American car makers have improved their quality and reliability but I don't think they can top Japanese manufacturers.