The automobile enabled a new leisure activity, the “Sunday drive.” It also sired the pejorative, “Sunday driver,” used during the workweek to describe a driver whose car limps languidly along the highway as compatriots rushing to work try to pass.
The words “Sunday drive” evoke pastoral images of a solitary, slowly moving car traveling along back roads that pass bucolic farms. Such images may not seem a good fit for Los Angeles with its vast network of freeways filled with drivers, forever in a hurry.
Read MoreCurlicueing across the Santa Monica Mountains, Topanga Canyon Boulevard and her older brother, Old Topanga Canyon Road, are popular shortcuts between the western San Fernando Valley’s portion of the Ventura Freeway (US 101) and Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica. During commute hours Topanga Canyon Boulevard is heavily traveled, sometimes with drivers familiar with her every curve, bored with her vistas, traveling at speeds newcomers find uncomfortable.
A portion of Topanga Canyon Boulevard follows alongside Topanga Creek, the third largest watershed entering Santa Monica Bay.
Read More