drivetofive

Odometer (Legend):  529,038

Odometer (ILX):  71,667

Trip Distance:  764 Miles

Anyone hungry?  I know where you can find a donut that’s 32 feet in diameter.

This weekend, I hit the highway and headed to the Golden State.  It only takes me about 6 hours to get from my house to Los Angeles.  Unfortunately, sometimes it can then take 6 hours to get from the suburbs of LA into LA, but that’s another story altogether.  Gotta love southern California traffic sometimes.  It was a great couple days of fun in the sun for me and for a few friends.  My friend Jeff was visiting from Calgary, Alberta so we had coordinated the weekend around his visit.

My Acura ILX knows Interstate 10 well, having traversed that road just a couple of weeks ago for the visit to Palm Springs, California.  I threw the gear selector into 6th and sailed off at 3,200 RPM with a full tank of gas.  My only two stops on the drive out were in Quartzsite, Arizona (for string cheese and a Muscle Milk – some of my preferred road trip snacks), and Palm Desert, California (for a 91-octane gas stop at Chevron and a bite to eat at Burger King).  One thing I noticed as I descended toward sea level was the tangible power gain from the ILX 2.4 liter.  Its 201 horses seem to breathe a little easier at that elevation.

I’ll highlight just a few of the memorable activities from the weekend.  I’m a huge Back to the Future fan, having seen each of the 3 movies in the series probably a dozen or more times.  Next year on October 21, 2015, I better be doing something exciting because that’s the date that Marty McFly traveled to when he departed from 1985.  I recently learned of the real-world locations of some of the movie’s scenes.  One of them was the McFly house in Pacoima, California not far from Interstate 5, pictured here in a screen capture as part of “Lyon Estates.”

Determined to scout this out, I headed up I-405 first thing on Saturday morning to cross that off my list.  Traffic, thankfully, was flowing smoothly throughout the day – I must’ve gotten lucky.  The early morning ‘marine layer’ had yet to burn off so it looked a bit overcast, but temperatures were in the mid-60’s and it was a perfect morning to do a little sightseeing.  Finding the McFly home was a piece of cake since I had the address in-hand.  As I rounded the corner onto Roslyndale Avenue, the street immediately looked familiar to me.  It didn’t look like anyone was home, so I pulled the ILX into the driveway for 30 seconds and snapped a photo.

Here’s the movie screenshot and my own version below it.

Mission:  Accomplished.  Next up, I headed southbound on I-5 and made a special visit in Orange County about 60 miles later.  My friend Mark in Laguna Hills had invited me over to pick up a few Acura goodies he wanted to part with.  He hooked me up with an OEM car cover for the 91-95 Legend coupe, a 1991 Legend sedan promotional brochure, and an Acura banner.  Score!

Back in the saddle I went, ricocheting northbound on I-5 again. (I probably drove 150 miles without even leaving the Los Angeles Metro area that morning.)  I met up for lunch with my friend and colleague Vince who works in Acura Public Relations.  I’ve interacted with him on the ALV program and most recently at the Detroit Auto Show.  It was great to catch up with him.  Our lunch locale of choice was a cozy retro diner in Culver City called Dinah’s.  I do highly recommend the mushroom burger & sweet potato fries!

The ocean beckoned, so for the rest of my day I joined up with Jeff and others for an afternoon at Manhattan Beach.  While parking was a bit of a challenge (and it doesn’t help that I won’t settle for just any parking space), I got settled in and tried my hand at a couple games of beach volleyball.  We all enjoyed a beautiful sunset from the pier later that evening.

This morning, my friends and I had breakfast at 26 Beach in Venice, known for its varieties of French toast.  After that, I had to stop by Randy’s Donuts on La Cienega in Inglewood for a photo-op.  Randy’s dates back to 1953 and its Wiki page talks about 16 movies that it’s been featured in, including Iron Man 2.  Here’s a picture of Tony Stark reclining inside the donut from Iron Man 2.

And my ILX pictured there earlier today.

My last stop before taking off for home was a car show sponsored by 742 Marketing that my friend Aaron had invited me to.  Aaron’s ILX was one of over 200 vehicles registered.  His ILX is vastly different from any other.  It started out as a bone stock Bellanova White 6-speed, but he’s since customized it with a custom quad exhaust, sport suspension, aftermarket wheels, and many other enhancements.  His next upgrades will be made under the hood, as he told me he’s hoping to hit “beyond 400” horsepower.  You go Aaron!

I pulled off a 33.1 mpg overall trip, not too shabby considering some more-spirited-than-normal driving in LA to take advantage of that great sea-level performance.  Another fun weekend road trip in the books.  The long, straight stretch of Interstate 10 through the desert was a fine place to spend Sunday afternoon.  Thanks for tagging along!

The rest of my trip’s pics will follow in sequential order. First was my dinner stop in Palm Desert on Friday.

Here’s what the Back to the Future street looks like.  Familiar to anyone else?

The famous house.  I wonder if there’s a DeLorean in the garage.

Thanks, Mark, for this awesome Acura banner!  It will go in the garage soon.

I spy!  Check out that Silver Moon ILX Hybrid on Interstate 405.  I spotted about half a dozen ILXs on the road during my travels in/around Los Angeles.

A couple of GPS screen shots to consider.  It’s not uncommon to see 7-lane-wide freeways in LA.  Each of the “up” arrows on my Garmin Nuvi meant that I was okay to be in any of the 5 center lanes.

What a mess of cities!

Lunch at Dinah’s in Culver City, famous for its fried chicken since 1959.

The place was bustling at noon on a Saturday.

Mushroom & Swiss = top notch.

Notice the “Culver City” signage in the background in my picture here with Vince.  He knows a lot about the history of the area and its infrastructure.

Off to the beach.  I actually took this picture so that I could remember where I had parked.

A little beach volleyball with Andrew, Jeff, and Rick.

Typical layout of homes in Manhattan Beach.

Sunset was phenomenal.

This is a tunnel that goes under the runways at LAX International Airport on Sepulveda Boulevard.

Venice, California, for this morning’s breakfast meet-up.

Which of these 18 different types of French toast would you pick?

I went with the Lemon Curd.  It tasted as great as it looked.

Randy’s!  It’s too bad I was already full of French toast or I would have eaten a donut.  Or two or three.

Aaron’s custom ILX 2.4 liter at the 742 Motoring Car Show.

Not bad MPG’s on this old ride.

Sayonara until next time!

This entry was posted on March 23, 2014 at 8:48 pm and is filed under California, ILX, Road Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.