It was when we got close to Los Angeles that the Little Old Lady From Pasadena earworm started. We visited Pasadena, and everywhere we went – guitar store, a restaurant, our friends’ home, the Rose Bowl – we found ourselves crossing the famed Colorado Boulevard – yes, the very road terrorized apocryphally by the little old lady in that song.
LA Freeway is another tune from our song list. All the major roads in LA County around LA (what we call highways or interstates back east) they call freeways. We were curious… Which of these is the actual ‘LA Freeway?’ Well, there isn’t one! It seems Guy Clark took some poetic license with his lyrics. (We chose ‘The 5’ for our purposes, though I suppose we could’ve used ‘The 10.’) Then we passed the exit for ‘Ventura Freeway.’ Wait, what? It turns out there is similarly no road in greater LA called the ‘Ventura Highway’ either – Dewey Bunnell of America just liked the sound of Ventura Highway better (he was right). It’s not too big of a stretch, so we’re counting both in this semi-serious project.
Finally, just as our drive west on Route 66 was unexpected, or at least this lyrical connection was unplanned (see Part 1), our unanticipated eastbound route brought the rig through Tucson and Tonopah (we’d already hit Tucumcari and Tehachapi on the way out) so we got Willin’ all wrapped up, too!