Home is where I want to be.
I’ve been on the road so long, my friend,
And if you came along
I know you couldn’t disagree…”
If you haven’t figured out by now, our vacation is over and we’re back home. So this is the last vacation report. We started the day in Fresno, where we met up with my Cousin Renie. We did some more thrift store shopping in Clovis, where Erin really scored some great vintage dresses. After that, we got on the road again.
I’ve written before about the change in character of Route 99. In the past, it was mostly expressway with some freeway portions. You could easily take the business route, and when you did, you could count upon seeing that hallmark of old US highways (for Route 99 used to be US 99): the highway arch as you entered the city. This has all changed.
Today, Route 99 between Fresno and Los Angeles is completely freeway. As you go down the road, you see the old highway periodically, with dead motels and dead small gas stations. The classic roadside businesses have been replaced with the automobile service malls: large gas stations with convenience stores designed for the trucker, chain restaurants, the occasional big box malls or outlet malls. There are large roadside signs advertising those businesses. Even more disturbing are the housing developments: in the middle of the farming of the central valley are these clusters of little boxes made of ticky-tacky, in groups of 50 or 100… some of them, for no earthly explanations… as condos. Are there jobs there to support them? No. They appear vacant, as ghost towns, a monument to the exploded housing bubble.
And what of the highway arch? In the freeway world, it is long gone (plus Caltrans probably wouldn’t go for any arch over a freeway). Instead, the small cities seem to complete for squarish banner signs, fancily made of stonework, announcing their city as you enter. Unlike the arches (which, being on both ends of the highway permitted it), these cities never wish you “good bye.” It is a new world for the freeway era.
We ended our journey coming into the valley over surface streets, as naturalment, we hit a traffic jam coming into Santa Clarita and Los Angeles proper. This permitted us to take “The Old Road”, and see the construction and widening that is taking place on I-5 (presumably to support the addition of the HOV lane). We then came down Balboa, stopped at Trader Joes, and home we are.
Tommorow will be spent at home, catching up on mail. Perhaps I’ll post some pictures.
