Mark Strickert graciously volunteered to plan the itinerary, which included multiple ways of reaching the rendezvous point selected for starting the trip--the Brea outlet of The Hat, a local chain renowned for its hot pastrami sandwiches (this would make up for last year when we were literally turned away from eating there because we arrived mere moments after closing).

Woody Rosner and I originally planned to take the Pacific Surfliner from Union Station to Fullerton and make our way from there to Brea. But we ran late and Woody suggested we consider reaching Brea via MTA line 471, one of the alternatives outlined in the itinerary. So we took MTA Metro Rapid 745 from Gateway Transit Center to Broadway and 6th Street in downtown L.A., transferred to MTA Metro Rapid 720 eastbound on 6th Street to Garfield/Whittier, took Montebello Bus line 10 further east on Whittier to Scott and then took MTA line 471 from Scott/Whittier to the Brea Mall.

A 10 minute walk and we arrived at the restaurant around 9:45 p.m., with just enough time to greet the rest of the members partaking of the trip and wolf down some chow before making our way to the bus stop across the street (State College and Imperial) to catch the southbound OCTA route 57 at 10:16

p.m. It was #5020, a New Flyer, with 6-7 passengers (all rider counts exclude trip participants). Participants included Andy Novak, Armando Avalos, Paul Castillo, Lionel Jones, Frank Roldan, Mark Strickert, Hank Fung, Woody Rosner and Dana Gabbard.

Frank described his pre-trip: caught #47 with Fung and Castillo; Strickert joined them at Harbor/Berkeley. After transferring to OCTA route 57 at Brea Mall, they reached The Hat where the rest of the riders (except Gabbard and Rosner) already had arrived.

As we traveled south the bus emptied out, also we encountered a BNSF freight train crossing the street (mercifully it didn't take too long to cross). Also we passed OCTA's Anaheim bus yard as the street became more commercial. This bus had an annunciator, which besides calling out the next stop would chime "stop requested" whenever the stop indicator was pressed. The phrase stop requested very quickly became annoying due to its repetition. As we continued boarding picked up, with 11 coming aboard at Katella. We even had a passenger with a bike. At 17th we had a timed transfer with OCTA route 60. At 1st Street there was a connection with OCTA route 64, resulting in 8-10 boarding the vehicle. Continuing along Bristol a crowd was spotted in the parking lot of a 24-hour eatery called the Bristol Burger. After going through the South Coast Plaza area we arrived at the terminal, Newport Transportation Center. After laying over we continued on the same bus northward and started refilling.

We deboarded at 17th and Bristol at 1 a.m. to take the timed transfer westbound OCTA route 60, #5114 a New Flyer D40 commuter [plush seats!] with
9 passengers. Hopping off at Harbor/Westminster at 1:06 a.m. we caught timed transfer southbound OCTA route 43, #2150 a NABI low floor LNG which a
had the night owl wrap (exterior decoration). There were 8 passengers and rather light ridership (although a large family boarded but only rode a short distance before getting off). We rode to the night-only southern terminus at 19th/Newport, then back north to Harbor/Orangethorpe.

There was some discord when a late night snack at a Denny's resulted in our missing the next bus. We dropped the ball on coordination. Eventually we reboarded OCTA route 43, this time an articulated bus #7302 NABI low floor D60. Since most were tired by this point (Strickert went on home and Fung/Roldan shared an auto) we connected with OCTA route 60 which took most of us to the Long Beach Transit Mall and an early morning Blue Line train to
Los Angeles.

The chief impression was ridership is developing well during the late evening period (10 p.m. to midnight). Ridership during owl periods is noticeable lighter but developing. Overall OCTA's implementation of owl service has been successful, of which they should be justly proud.

My thanks to Mark Strickert for contributing to this report