I realize after the trip is over that part of the reason I hated my traveling companions no doubt had to do with the fact that they are not of my culture.

They are Angelinos.

It pains me that my great state is somehow conjoined to theirs. We had no idea where to end the reckless abandon called "California" and when we got the second part it seemed just as good to stack it with the other part and call it California too.

For a time, they were the place to be. When modernity and the jet age were new and TV started jumping down in Burbank and 2/3rds of Americas cold war dollars flowed through the region, maybe this was true.

Since then, everything has been coming up NorCal and they really deserve to lick our boots but their sheer numbers compel them to be the stronger part of the state.

One need only look at the relative calamity of our respective earthquakes and what sort of dollars flowed when the disaster ran north or south.

Dotcom was all us as has been the water. If we cut the southern part of the state loose they would wither without us but I do not know the reverse is true.

I have lived all my life in the Northern Republic, I know that culturally we are more like the folks from the Pacific Northwest than those who share our borders.

Were we to say "In a secessionist fight, who would you to be with, Oregon? Washington?" I would say that they join us.

It is one of the few aspects I feel truly patriotic about in an idiotic sense. If it came to bearing arms for the cause of Northern supremacy, I would be all about it.

This speaks to their bus culture, I presume.

In Northern California we all drive our own cars to the slopes. Even if this is hours or hours, we all take our own transportation.

Not necessarily so in LA. I don't know if its as common as it was in my Dad's day but he always used to talk about the charter bus running down to Big Bear or Mammoth or something. The slopes down there just aren't Tahoe close.

One could see under such circumstances that perhaps leaving the driving to club-provided transportation would be a much better way to go.

Of course, spending so much time in such circles one would be accustomed to a certain standard of living while aboard. Booze, social nonsense, all manner of ill-mannered behavior.

This is a second home after all, the great traveling circus.

I long for the solitude of a private car or at least a civilized bus trip that reminds me less of grade school for alcoholics.

Our travel agent is suprised when the local in Tirano blows her off as a foolish American when she attempts to enjoin him to speak English. Calls him jerky.

Foolish American. Perhaps I too am jerky for such sentiments.

We decide to leave the two fools who took the train back behind, a bold move for a group leader.

The agent says derisive things about the duo. She is in her cups.

Angelinos...