At my birthday dinner, I was able to talk to three of the four people going with me. This is Dave, Mark, and Jody. Todd was working that night, so I had to speak to him at a later date and time. But in preparation of getting there, we have to coordinate our efforts. For the most part, I hate driving in a caravan formation. I like everyone in my car, driving down all together and thereby enjoying the trip down without it having to seem disjointed. This year, however, it’ll be Jody and I driving, with Dave and Mark coming with me and Todd going with Jody. That’s kind of a first, since every year since 96, Todd has always ridden with me. If you’ll recall either of the Anime Expo travel logs I’ve posted here on my livejournal back in April, I think you could come to understand the magnitude or level of planning I must dump into it. I can’t put enough emphasis upon the stress factor that goes along with getting five guys to work together as a team. Shit, Anime Expo might actually be considered a team sport, given the complex nature of communication, not to mention lighting a fire under Mark’s ass to actually get anything done. With that said, the plans have been put into play. I’ve taking care of my car, Jody’s got his plans with his. Team Cochrane is meeting at my place, where everyone is going to pile into my green machine and then we head over to Todd’s where Team James will be ready to rock. Once we have both cars ready to go, we pop in the musical selections done up by our respective navigators and we make for Highway 85 to US-101 to CA 152 over to I-5.
Interstate 5 is a long stretch of highway that’s four lanes and runs from Seattle to San Diego. It’s pretty straight, too. This is an excellent place for cars to figure out where their speed governors kick in. I found out back in 2000 that it kicks in at about 131-132mph. I remember accelerating and then suddenly it was like I hit this plateau and I couldn’t go any faster. I practically forced the pedal through the floorboard, but she wouldn’t go. I had no idea what had happened at the time, to be honest. I just recall feeling very disappointed with the performance of the car.
Anyway, back to the plan. What’s still left to do? I still have yet to change the oil and wash the car. I’m planning on changing the oil sometime this week and then I’ll wash the car Tuesday before we leave Wednesday morning the 3rd. I’ll posting daily news on the plans, and then when I get back, I’ll have to write up the travel log.
