Seriously now, I think the executive along with the rank and file of the UAW should rise up and be reliably counted upon to use Flowerbud.com as their one and only source of fresh cut flowers in all seasons and for any, all and no particular reason at all. I am after all about to weave yet another fine product from General Motors into a hectic day and a story of approval that at one time would have ranked as quite out of character for me. In ‘Vase Runner’ I lauded their behemoth Suburban on a marathon run and now I find myself waxing on about a plain vanilla sedan that seems to have entered the market place to little fanfare, perhaps because it coincided with “The General” slipping into “Government Motors” and their over reaching, overdrive gear.
Whatever. It’s comfortable seat and serenely quiet interior still lie a thousand miles south of a warm bed and another 4 am PDX trek. My car parks ( it knows its own way ) at blue R7, the Rosetta Stone experiment that is the bus from economy parking to the terminal is as punctual as ever and of course my considerable monetary infusion to Alaska Airlines goes a long way in aiding all the free flying enjoyed by airline staff and families, not to mention allowing just the odd day of work for those with inordinate seniority. Numerous days away from the job being essential to the storing up of sufficient surliness and bile that qualifies one to be cabin crew, and whoo hoo, even the beer in hand emergency slide operator on more than a few of today’s airlines. Just this week I was chatting with a Delta Platinum passenger who in three months of enthusiastic looking over some 60,000 miles had yet to find a cabin crew member who had earned one of the accolades that Delta HQ wants their premium passengers to award to staff for simply doing their job with pleasant and helpful demeanor. You would not accept that of your pizza delivery person and yet after dropping hundreds and perhaps thousands for a plane fare you get to take it from any number of personnel attached to the aircraft… and keep mute.
I manage a fairly cheery and donation free pass through the TSA while trying hard not to envision enhanced and enlarged images of athletes foot fungus, as shoes off , I work my way to the point where we all hitch up our pants or skirts and look either embarrassed, relieved, guilty or feign being too cool for school. Bear in mind this is PDX and there are an awful lot of Birkis, Danskos, Tevas and Keens alighting from Light Rail or the latest hybrid vehicle combusting soy lattes, switch grass ethanol or ( coming soon & no doubt with a tax subsidy ) methane, from the plentiful by product of dogs eating holistic dog food and being pushed in strollers to “doggy parks”… to then be shed by the barefoot on the grubby carpet. Few in the pudgy, white and tatted throngs look very athletic. So maybe there is a measure of safety in that? I am fervently and perhaps visibly praying that my ‘Smart Wool’ socks are at least smart enough to stave off any such floor level malignancies. I proceed on to the gate and discover I am blessed with a most opportune upgrade to the comfy seats up front and the day takes on a far sunnier disposition, John Wayne Airport here I come.
Hertz has been abandoned by me for this trip, as they reveal themselves as shameless robber barons in the SoCal market while the merry men at Alamo are only to happy to rob from them and re distribute fine cars to the more parsimonious of us road warriors. The gleaming white beauty that is Ms.Malibu, awaits for me just one floor below, with blindingly chromed wheels and a cloth cool black interior. Of all the cars to have recently sprung from domesticity this one is arguably among the sleekest, leanest, longest, lowest and most lithesome,More akin to the sveltely proportioned Acura TL before its recently super-sized dose of botox gave us another bloated charabanc of cellulite. A crying shame while a wonderful opportunity for those US auto designers whose clay knives… can cut more than fill!
With Mistress Garmin plugged into the old smokers hole we are off to cover much of the LA basin today with a few far flung points tossed in for good measure. The stated mission is to rebalance hard/non- perishable good on farms for flowerbud. Riverside is our first stop and we head unerringly into a mustard gas like air quality that bathes the mountains ahead with such a noxious veil they barely appear but as the merest hints of their true selves. With ‘turn left’, ‘keep right’ ‘take next exit’ seeping from ear to brain to eyes and then to hands and feet, Malibu purrs towards her first destination. Purr, as gentle and inoffensive a description as it is, still really overstates the case because in truth I can’t vouch for this car’s engine even being turned on and running, so silent it is. At post legal speeds and barely maintaining the local pace of ‘lotsa’ mph the tach shows a laconic 2000 rpm, the gas gauge resolutely sticks on F and the tautness of the body and its caulking have the shattered concrete, a million expansion joints and the tar filled cracks gliding below as if they were all just formed and laid of velvet. Are you skeptical yet? I don’t wish to make you gasp as the air quality is so rank, but even as Malibu herself breathes in aluminum lungfuls of it she is apparently adding very little back that is as noxious. Her carbon footprint being quite dainty and slipper like. As the mountains draw nearer and with the ocean receding behind she definitely shows herself to be more mountain goat than beached whale, remaining taught and agile enough in all critical aspects to prove capable… if not quite thrilling. Not much wrong with that.
The generous trunk and cavernous rear seat devour boxes and boxes from the really big box of a distribution center that Mistress Garmin found with ease and before the nicely cool interior of the car has time to heat up very much we are headed via Burbank to Ventura… like a cruise missile. All long range and guidance with a good measure of stealth. The miles tick by and my seat by now situated just so, is proving to be supportive and quite comfortable. Come to think of it its a long time since I sat on a cloth seat and today I am quite enjoying it. The trip computer, zeroed out at John Wayne shows a remarkable average speed of 64 mph at an eye popping 35 mpg. All this from the largest none SUV type vehicle I have travelled in for years ( not having been in a police cruiser of late ) and all on LA’s traffic clogged freeways. So far so good as even fully loaded with the cargo equivalent of a couple adult passengers and their luggage, all this is being taken easily in her stride. Burbank comes and goes and the air seems a little more breathable as we head north west past the showrooms of BMW’s, Mercedes and Audis. The mental cost comparison leaves me less than envious and Malibu almost snickers in derision. The Oxnard plain opens before us and the remaining hard farmed soils produce celery and strawberries up close to the road with tattered poly covered tunnels for raspberries and a few ever more rare lemon groves still visible over towards Pt Mugu. This entire plain looks to be ridden hard and put away parched… while the under construction mega mall gives lie to the neighborhoods where homes are stripped, shorted, foreclosed and abandoned with the only signs of growth being the realty, bank, estate and garage sale signs! Dump your mortgage and go shopping being the message for some
Then all of a sudden and just past Ventura, there in the nicely raked windshield is a sparkling ocean and the channel islands. Well almost. The northern city limits of Ventura see the end of sunshine and the start of an overcast 60F something for quite a spell. Time to dial up a little C&W music on the very nice sounding stereo and a couple of open rear windows can take the place of the capable AC for a while. A pit stop quick visit to the Gerbera farm in Carpinteria and I am headed for San Luis Obispo now with the back seat stuffed full of vases as well as the trunk. Traffic is moving apace and the never ending road construction on 101 in Santa Barbara is exactly that and I already see it as a negative for my return past this same spot in a few hours. North of Goleta the road opens and brown hills pull back from the sea into weather fissured canyons where well water creates the odd green oasis dotted with buckskin horses, where stock tanks surrounded by muddy, hoof printed quagmires are dribbled full by the lazy spin of old Aermotors directed into the merest hint of breeze by vanes with faded 1888 Texas graphics. Up towards Santa Maria the painfully long and tended rows of wine grapes, drink in a verdant greenness while transferring this summer’s sweetness to low hanging fruit. If Malibu wants her head, like the watered horses, there is a CHP motorcycle off on the hard shoulder with lights flashing engaged in a wealth distribution that instantly provides encouragement to reef back hard on her bit. The newness of Santa Maria comes and goes through the left side window and the old world of vegetables, berries and gladioli takes focus out on our right flank as rows of tiny green seedlings and shimmering aluminum irrigation pipe head arrow straight to the oil patch at the base of the brown hills.
Arroyo Grande is announced by Mistress Garmin and we veer off into its eucalyptus groves and sand dunes and in doing so pass a Luffa farm that I am bound and determined to visit one of these days (same thought for a dozen years now!) I mean how cool can that be? Did you know they are related to cucumbers and similarly grow on vines? No time today as the hourglass sifts through its sand quite quickly and the person I need to meet started his day equally early and has a hot date with his running shoes and a gaggle of other skinny critters. Malibu disgorges her full load of acrylic and I take time to see some of this farms spectacular production which will in due course accompany these vases far and wide across the US. It’s always a thrill to see a Lily poking its head out of the sand and slightly wobbly rows of infant Lisianthus looking more like gangly pea plants than the becoming beauties as yet to grace a vase… and then there are benched acres of Amaryllis, growing monstrous strap like leaves in this benign climate while cooling their heels until the coach calls for them in November. The grower runs off while I and Malibu drive off up the the sandy track and back onto pavement. Its late afternoon and we both need topping off before we head back towards LA. Me with coffee, she with a few gallons of regular. Suitably refreshed its time to settle back into the seat, dial up and turn up some tunes and road reports as we navigate towards a distant Huntington Beach both in rush hour and in time for dinner (fingers crossed).
This whipping around Central and SoCal in its notorious traffic has been quite blissful to this point and as we glide ever so smoothly back towards Santa Barbara I am lulled into thinking that the naysayers from places else are full of it… but then I get to Santa Barbara and from there to LAX it is pretty much nose to tail no matter how many lanes wide the freeway. Ventura, Thousand Oaks, Calabasas, up hill and down dale by the Getty Museum… it doesn’t matter. Every car ever manufactured and still operating seems to have converged right here and right now. It really isn’t bothering me over much as I am cool, comfortable, entertained and still alert in the surroundings of Malibu, cheap date that she is proving to be. Wincing as the motorcyclists practice lane splitting at speed, I reflect on how unpleasant a stick shift would be in this environment and how ingenious this six speed automatic is. Talk about keeping things cool, calm and collected! There is a fair amount of rubber banding inherent in the traffic flow and from baseball slow to rather rapid and then back to a watching grass grow slowly pace, is a constant theme demanding concentration if one is going to make any headway at all. While the driver only Prius’s, the poolers and the pseudo-poolers with rent a ladies of (the early evening in this case) or the Love Doll’s for the cheapskates, are all making better time (or perhaps even making out) in the righteous and rarified atmosphere of the HOV lane I am quietly pleased with our progress. Who needs to be a video gamer when you can drive out here. This can be as thrilling as you care to make it and the many careless others are completely oblivious to the thrills they add for you. The most problematic drivers out here all seem to have oversized white framed sunglasses or even cooler shades whose frames tout large, the bling of some fashion house in Italy and a tacky spot where the made in China sticker was removed. Hands Free means lipstick can be applied while Blue Tooth is for those that can read an instruction manual, hence the ubiquitous iphone is ostentatiously glued to an ear while they disproportionately drive Mercedes sedan convertibles in wedding cake white or pale blue… most often with the top up. Laughably vain creatures in yoga pants engaged in everything but attentive driving and going we know not where nor likely do we care. I cant resist toggling the travel info button to see how Malibu’s speed and fuel consumption are suffering. Sure enough, even with our concerted best efforts the average speed has nudged down a couple mph’s but as yet she refuses to give in to any form of thirst. Respect begins to grow into admiration and a real yearning for more.
LAX jets by and the Goodyear Blimp floats about its tether while preparing to mosey on down to Del Mar in the morning ( that is where I saw it/one on the following morning) My hosts are waiting dinner ( well almost ) and advise I take Seal Beach to Huntington Beach and it proves a good and easy route to the dinner table. Entertaining also as the route trades a Naval weapons facility and a berthed warship for the head offices of Simple Green. An awful lot of Simple Green being needed to clean up any mess the warship could make, I muse in passing. Malibu, I assume is named after the star pocked beach just to the north of us and is very much at home cruising down the PCH… She even has a pass through rear seat which I am sure can accommodate your surf boards! As the clock begins to tick off the 600th mile of the day she remains as serene,attractive and as long legged as ever. A longer pit stop in Huntington Beach at one of the most beautifully decorated “bowling alley” beach” homes sees me well fed on a bottomless bowl of Carne Asada salad… my tool of barter being a stunning bunch of ‘Robina’ Oriental Lilies from the Nippomo farm. Luffas next time, I promise. Fed and watered I have one last leg to ask of Mistress Malibu and quickly we cover the almost deserted freeway down to Carlsbad. At a little past midnight I turn her off and tuck her up close to the curb as at the same time I call to a close my own long day. When the Alamo rep at Lindbergh Field asks me if all was satisfactory at drop off the following morning I have a difficult time not waxing lyrical while handing him the day planner left in the car by the prior renter and a request they send it on to them. Chevrolet builds a really nice car here I don’t know why I am so surprised. It is a whole lot of car for $20k and with the 100k mile warranty it is hard to see where one could go wrong with this car. Lovely Ms. Malibu also easily retained her super cheap date persona as she continued to sip her drinks at an affordable and environmentally sound 30 mpg average for over 700 plus miles of warm, rapid and congested motoring. Simply fabulous for a “full figured” gal! Driven with just a tad less zest this is a true 33-35 mpg car… sans battery. A really nice step reflecting the immediate availability of relatively clean & affordable solutions (via economy if not fuel type) for personal transportation and towards those being sought for the future generations of autos… or their equivalent.
UAW, It’s your turn now. Go Flowerbud.com !