If there's one thing that can be said about the city of Los Angeles, it's that the entire place is humongous.  Remembering that Los Angeles is a city as well as a county, driving from one end to the other can take several hours depending on the time of day.  There are a dozen freeways interconnected across a rolling landscape, cut apart by hills or the LA river, often changing direction, splitting and converging with limited signage and a warrant out for any tourists looking to get lost.  If you haven't grown up in Los Angeles the entire thing can become quite confusing.

So what's the point of having so many freeways?  Well, there are millions of people living in the city and they're trying to get somewhere, whether it be in the middle of the night or during the hot afternoon.  Whenever I get on the road and start driving around Los Angeles I am amazed at how many people there are sharing the road, each car headed somewhere unique, every driver tuned to a different station.  At any given moment, each freeway has tens of thousands of motorists all speeding ten miles beyond the limit to make appointments, meetings, dates, deadlines, you name it.  It's easy to get behind the wheel and suddenly feel like a part of a bigger herd, a single being in a maelstrom of mindsets, personalities, and priorities.  I look out my window while speeding down the 405 and see all sorts of people driving around, ready to shake their fist when I pull ahead of them and bark about their rights as a motorist.

Sometimes I like to roll my window down, pull my left knee to my chest, stick my foot out the driver's side and prop my ankle on the side mirror.  I like to open the rear window on my pickup truck and give people the rocker hand when we're in traffic.  I wave to strangers across the way while sitting at red lights, and am not hesitant to compliment the music choices of other drivers as we cruise down the interstate.  It's not like I'm ever going to see these people for the rest of my life, I figure.  Who knows where they're going today, tomorrow, or next year.  Chances are slim we'll end up at the same diner, coffee shop, bar, or movie theater.  So I say, wave heartily and often, blast your music and enjoy the ride.