The world was on fire! The day before the schools of San Diego was evacuated, the morning Erica hysterically texts me about my well being, but I had one thing on my mind: Interpol! Noel and I drove to L.A. during the fires of San Diego and Los Angeles, the show was still scheduled and by far ended up being a great show. However after the show was when the fun began.
Let me stop here and mention a few things about the trip: First we made Second the mistake of having 2 CD's, Wet From Birth and Room on Fire. was that Noel drove a Jeep, clearly for off terrain purposes.
On the way from the venue to the car, we spotted a trail of blood leading to the Jeep and saw a bloody knife on the floor. We joked about how a serial killer was near by, but still speedily left the vicinity just to be safe.
Driving down the 5 to San Diego from Los Angeles, I noticed a few things. First the moon was super red and I couldn't tell if it was the October moon, or the reflection of the fires. The second was how eerily warm and calm everything was. All seemed tranquil until we reached Anaheim, when the Jeep's plastic roof/soft top came flying off. Noel, being the coward, decided it was a great idea to pull over and have me go get the soft top. Let me say, it was a terrifying experience, running into the freeway, in the middle of the night, wearing all black to recover a soft top. But the deed was done with much success, we put everything back in its place and headed home. Unfortunately, it all happened again when we got to Irvine. After attaining the soft top again, we decided it would be better if we just packed the soft top and drive without it. The weather would be fine as the heat from the fires would even out the cold wind created by the speed of the car. We were almost home, seeing the glorious "Oceanside- 7 miles" sign when for some reason traffic began to slow down. I couldn't see what was happening but cars were being directed to pull over. Eventually we came to there realization we might not make it home and our fears were confirmed when the police asked us to pull over and park with the rest of the traffic who were not making it home that night as well. I still recall seeing the crying children who wanted to be home and the concerned parents who wondered about their homes in the fires. Apparently the fires stretched out across the freeway. Noel at this point made the revelation that he lied to his parents and was not even allowed to leave the city. Coming from a Jehovah's Witness family, Noel feared his parents so we devised various schemes to make it home. The first was to drive on the beach. Our logic lead us to believe that water and fire won't mix and that since California is a coast we could eventually just drive down the sand to San Diego. Unfortunately, we didn't anticipate cliffs. We gave up on our other escapades. I decided to convince a firefighter to let us cross, since we lived so close (i lied) but he said that was not a possibility. He suggested that if we wanted to we could take the I-74/Ortega Highway all the way to lake Elsinore and take the I-15 south to San Diego. A stranger managed to jump in the conversation and offered us to let us follow him and his GPS if we told him the information provided to us. We were off to go home.
For those who never been on Ortega highway, let me tell you, its a fucking road on a mountain! The lanes were narrow and there is no artificial lighting at night. I never feared for my life so much as being on that road. It also didn't help that the stranger that wanted to join us on the way to San Diego, pulled over and decided to come out in the most Jason Vorhees-esque way ever! He approached our car and we had the option to pull over with him or run him over. Would you kill a would-be serial killer before he had a chance? Fortunately, he didn't end up being a serial killer. It turned out he needed help and asked me if i could drive his car for him. At this point he revealed that he also came from a concert and dropped acid. Never being confident of my driving skills I suggested it would be safer to let the man tripping on hallucinogens to drive on the narrow road on a mountain. As a precautionary measure we exchanged numbers to make sure that he didn't do anything stupid. We continued driving through the dangerous road finally making it to the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, we had some problems at this point. First I got a call from out tripping hippie whose car had apparently transformed into a spaceship and was ready to fly to the moon. He wanted us to join him. His car was already swerving that we needed to be be several feet behind him as to not be in a collision, I kept screaming at him over the phone telling him to follow the road. However, another problem we came across was that apparently when one drives for several hours, gas begins to run out and being at the top of the mountain we had all but finished it. We had to drive down the mountain on neutral to conserved what little we had to boost us up to the road. Facing possible death, mine or a strangers, I looked out my window and saw the beauty of the town before me. Lake Elsinore, whose waters shimmered from the moon and the stars. If this was my last moment on earth at least I got a view. Everything went according to plan. We managed to survived, used whatever little we had of gas and made it to the first gas station nearby.
But the story does not end there.
You see we filled up the tank, got snacks and were ready to leave. While paying for our supplies though, I overheard some disturbing news: They were gonna close the I-15. All that hard work, all that stress for nothing. I explained the situation to the Sheriff that shared the news and he suggested that if i had the balls to get on the I-15 and drive like hell because ain't no one gonna stop us. The Highway Patrol and police's only goal was to make it to the cut off point to block of the road. I ran to the car, told noel what was going on and we sped off. I was in a police chase. Or at least that's what it looked like to an outside perspective, 11 police cars behind us while we sped like lightning. Nearing Fallbrook however things began to get unbearably uncomfortable. I would like to remind the readers we were driving with the jeep's soft top roof off, and there was a massive San Diego fire. Ash was falling from the sky and it was burning our skin, probably cause lung damaged and made it hard to see. Death was our passenger that night, he wanted to take us but we wanted to fight. I was tired of the music in the car as well, for devotees of this story might remember, we only had two CD'S and we kept playing the one by the Strokes, named Room on FIRE. I ejected it and tossed it out the window eventually hitting a cop car windshield. I still couldn't tell if they were trying to make it to the cutoff point or if they were now chasing us. It didn't matter though, the cutoff point was in our sight. We weren't gonna make it, they were putting up the barricades and unless we boosted through it our attempts had failed. However Noel said "grab on to something" and before we knew it we passed through the cutoff point, scraping part of the barricade before making it to the safe zone on the road to San Diego.
A drive back home from a concert takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes from Los Angeles to San Diego. The show ended at 11 pm that night, I got home at 7 am in the morning. We faced hell and survived.
F# Minor
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