Rte 57 - 20 minutes and Rte 91 - 27 minutes

Every morning when I get on the freeway to go to work - I drive past one of the those CalTrans electronic billboards - the ones that usually say - Click It or Ticket - or - Don't Drink and Drive - or - Hands Free It's the Law.  Anyway... it always gives the time it should take to get to the 57 and 91 freeways.  Usually it says Rte 57 - 14 minutes.  I've always wanted to stay on the 5 freeway to see if it is really correct - and always think that one of these days I'm just going to do the drive to see.  Well, since I was on my way to Whittier this morning - this was the day!  This morning I left a little late, so it said Rte 57 - 20 minutes and Rte 91 - 27 minutes.  That was at 8:06am.  So I was feeling pretty confident that I would make it to the office early.  Then I hit it - traffic - unbelievable traffic through Tustin - it was a day that I wished I drove an automatic!  As I'm crawling through Tustin - I glance at the clock and think - nope - it sure isn't correct.  I finally saw another sign at 8:42am (do the math) that said Rte 57 - 5 minutes and Rte 91 - 11 minutes.  By this time - the traffic had dissipated - but I discovered that the only way to make it in those times was to drive 80 mph!  Apparently, CalTrans advocates speeding - nice!  I did end up getting to the office on time - was even able to stop at Fresh and Easy to get some water - forgot to bring any and didn't want to be without it - especially since I'm still trying to get over my cold.  So the moral of the story is - unlike the Happiest Place on Earth that is actually pretty accurate in their wait time estimates - CalTrans is lousy at it!

The day went well - the folks in the office were very nice - I go back tomorrow to work some more with them. I did see an interesting sight on the way home - it was a Winchell's Donut shop!  I had to look twice to see if it was actually open - I haven't seen one of those in a long time - I almost had to stop in just for old times sake!