Hybrid to Hell?

Driving on Labor Day has always seemed like work to us, so we’ve avoided it. Of course, living just off the beach in Santa Monica for 10 years made that easier. It seemed those car-obsessed masses fuming and reeling from the congestion of the 10 Freeway and the 405 were all headed to our neighborhood anyway, so most of our efforts on the long weekend went toward avoiding them.

This year, we decided to join the rest of the lemmings and hit the highway, but driving in the opposite direction. We may be just as crazy, but we’re a smarter kind of crazy. Or are we? Palm Springs this weekend was easily into the triple digits and apparently still “off-season” so when our old beach buddies from Santa Monica invited us out to their new digs in the desert, we fired up the Flexcar in the cool belly of its Batcave and took off toward the desert heat.

And liked it. Of course, it’s all in the timing and having Willie and Waylon and Dwight Yoakam along for the ride helped.


Yet, the best driving (for me, anyway) came on the Westin’s Mission Hills Gary Player golf course – where the rates are still cheap because the Golf Rat regulars have yet to come out from under their rocks. There the fairways are fair and square and more forgiving than most and the deserted course was devoid of party-pushing pinheads and sputtering putterers as well. Kevin and I quickly breezed through 18 holes before the cicada-drone heat and the humility got to us. Back at the Rancho ranchero, the pool was cool, the golf widow wives were too and the margaritas frozen.



And when it was time to leave, the cumulus clouds provided cover for our trek back with the American masses. No blinding setting sun in our windshield sights but a quick flash of lightning (!) was a sure sign from the Gas Guzzling Gods to hit the Drive-Thru Starbucks for a jolt of caffeine. Safety first/thirst. And save for two fender-bender slowdowns (not involving us), we made good time and shockingly HAD a good time Flex-ing our Freeway muscles. Equally amazing, Flexcar’s new Hybrid Honda Civic still feels like the first easy-to-drive Honda I drove back in 1980 . For just over a hundred bucks (gas included! insurance included!) we got our communal little Hybrid for more than 48 hours which meant a lot of cylinder-bang for our bucks. And for little work. Of any kind.