Day 9: Travel day
Welcome
Yesterday we left Denver and flew to LA to tool up for our next four weeks in the van.
I got a bit more adventurous with the complimentary buffet and went for a hot and a cold option. The hot serving was two hash browns dressed with salt and black pepper. The cold serving was cornflakes with low-fat milk and full-fat berry yoghurt.
I gave the chain-mail curtain in the lobby one final caress before hopping into an Uber for the ride to the airport. We passed the iconic Luis Jiménez sculpture Blue Mustang on the approach road and it was looking pristine sporting a fresh coat of paint after some recent graffiti.
Liz scored us a couple of smartecartes® on arrival at Denver International and we trundled in to the check-in area. The United Airlines staff were only too happy to help us with the check-in process and we ended up with three staff members swarming over our baggage until it was all sucked away by the conveyor belt.
The security hall was a new experience for us. To find the entrance to the queue you have to walk around the edge of the hall and then down a corridor on the far side. Then you enter the complex pathway marked out with retractable-belt stanchions, a journey that takes you back and forth across the breadth of the hall about twenty times. There is also a part where you escape this lateral travel and go in a couple of small circles before you double back to the mid point of the maze and continue walking the long lines. As I am writing this I just had a thought - it is possible the queue is designed to resemble an American flag. Maybe I am way out here but I definitely feel like I walked the stripes.
It is about a ten minute walk to get to the end of this walkway and there you go back to standard queuing for the TSA checkpoints.
It was another incredibly scenic flight that began with a very long takeoff run to gain adequate lift in Denver’s thin, high-altitude air. The initial climb took us over the Rockies and it wasn’t long before we were seeing the orange hematite desert of southern Utah and Arizona. We flew over Grand Canyon National park and saw the spectacular sedimentary rock formations that splay out like tendrils from the edge of vast green plains. Then we were over the Mojave Desert in southern Arizona passing the isolated city of Las Vegas and then notorious Death Valley in California. The approach into LAX gives an opportunity to experience the vastness of Los Angeles with the seemingly endless sprawl gradually densifying until the skyscrapers of downtown emerge as the centrepiece.
We met our baggage at the carousel and loaded it onto the three smartecartes® we had snagged en route. It felt like a good omen since we wouldn’t be needing any kind of airport push-cart for a long time.
A pair of ubers then transported us to the van rental where we found our 2022 Mercedes Benz Sprinter awaiting us, the spotless white paint job glistening under an afternoon sun.
The paperwork was signed and we hit the road heading first to Monster Management HQ in Eagle Rock. It had been a while since we saw our managefriends Jake and Apple so we took the time to catch up before moving on to the business of the afternoon. The first task was to sign 225 posters for our upcoming album release. Next we had to prep the van for four weeks of heavy use.
This meant turning a 15 seat luxury passenger transport into a long distance cargo hauler. The last row of seats was removed and slotted neatly into the row in front. There they were secured with ratchet straps to provide absolute stability in case of any heavy maneuvering. A state of the art phone holder/charger was installed at the driving position. We hooked up to the Mercedes Benz computer to allow precision control of the vehicle systems and music playback. Then we were set.
The first van pack is always a special occasion and this time it went really well. We stowed our huge pile of merch boxes and then put down a layer of sound equipment followed by the amps and drums topped by instruments and personal bags. Then it was time to say goodbye to Jake and Apple and head down the coast to our final destination.
Ready to hit the road!
We learned from Gabe that it is good luck to capture a portrait from the reversing camera at the start of the tour.
Downtown LA seen from the i5 as we head south.
Around 9pm we arrived at Solana Beach, a small town about 30 minutes north of San Diego. Our travel day was over and we were ready for the next leg of the tour to begin.