Rick on the Road

We landed in Los Angeles in the spring of 2026 with that particular East Coast confidence that comes from thinking you understand cities. We know traffic. We know sprawl. We live outside Durham, after all, where you still need a car for most things. But the moment we picked up the rental and started rolling onto the freeway, we realized we had underestimated LA. The scale is different here. The freeways feel like rivers with their own moods, and every destination on the map looks close until you notice the tiny line that says it will take 42 minutes to get there. We kept laughing at how often we said, “It’s only eight miles,” as if that meant anything.

Driving became its own part of the trip, for better and worse. We spent a lot of time in the car, watching the city shift around us. One minute we were passing low-slung neighborhoods with palm trees leaning like they were eavesdropping on the sidewalk, the next we were surrounded by glass towers and billboards the size of houses. We’d pop off the freeway for gas or coffee and instantly feel like we’d entered a new town entirely. Back home, we think of a metro area as one place with pockets; in LA, it felt like a whole patchwork of cities stitched together by on-ramps and brake lights. It was disorienting at first, then oddly fun once we surrendered to the idea that getting anywhere would take time.

The payoff for all that driving was the food. We made a loose rule that if we saw a crowded taco stand and could safely pull over, we would. We ate tacos standing on sidewalks, in parking lots, and sitting on curbs, trying not to let salsa drip on our shoes. We wandered through farmers markets that put our usual weekend haul to shame — piles of citrus, strawberries that actually smelled like strawberries, herbs you could smell from a few stalls away. What surprised us most wasn’t just the variety, but how casual it all felt. There was no big production about “farm-to-table” like we’re used to seeing in East Coast menus; it was just how people seemed to eat.

When we needed a break from the freeways, we headed to the beach. Coming from North Carolina, we’re used to quieter stretches of sand where you might see more dune grass than people on a weekday. In LA, the beaches felt like living rooms that had spilled out onto the ocean. There were families with coolers, teens practicing tricks on skateboards, people walking dogs that clearly had better wardrobes than we do. The water was colder than we expected, but there was something relaxing about just walking the long, flat stretches of sand and watching the waves roll in under a hazy sky. We kept saying that it felt both relaxed and busy at the same time, like everyone was doing their own thing but also part of a shared ritual.

By the time we flew back to Durham, what stuck with us most wasn’t a single landmark or moment but the overall rhythm of the city. Los Angeles felt big in every direction — bigger distances, bigger skies, bigger choices for what to eat on a random Tuesday. It asked us to slow down our expectations even while everything moved fast around us. As East Coasters, we came in expecting to roll our eyes at the traffic and the hype; we left talking about how much we’d barely scratched the surface and how, next time, we might choose one or two neighborhoods and really settle in. LA didn’t turn us into experts on anything, but it did give us a new appreciation for letting a place be exactly what it is, even if that means spending more time in the car than you planned.