Road Trip

The Cal State Dominguez Hills men's basketball team begins a four-game road trip today at San Francisco State. Dominguez Hills (1-1) will be at Cal State Hayward on Sunday and Cal State Sacramento on Monday before returning to Southern California for a game Thursday at Biola University. The Toros lost in overtime to Grand Canyon College in their opener last week, 72-67, then came from 11 points down to defeat Puget Sound, 69-67, last Saturday.

WHEN Lizzie Post crammed into a Volkswagen Jetta last year for a three-day, cross-country road trip with a good friend and her cousin, plus a chinchilla named Bea and a cat named Denim, she knew far more was at stake than choosing the right fork or making proper introductions. She had no doubt that road-trip etiquette could mean the difference between arriving at the destination still speaking to everyone or fantasizing about ditching a nettlesome passenger at the next rest stop.

Young sluggers from San Juan Capistrano and Mission Viejo literally will sweat it out over the next two weeks as the group of 11- and 12-year-old baseball players prepare to depart Aug. 6 for the steamy South Pacific and Far East. According to Bob Noel, the manager and organizer of the 15-member all-star team that will spend 10 days in the Philippines and Hong Kong, the players are practicing in sweat suits with light jackets under their shirts to get ready for the tropical heat.

One for the road takes on a more helpful meaning with the following new products, which should keep you safe, up to speed, headed in the right direction and traveling in style. * Handling inflation Tire gauge: Deflation is a tire's enemy and a mileage killer. The palm-size Smart Pressure Tire Gauge measures the actual tire pressure against the vehicle's recommended pressure, which you program into it.

Ever notice the 22-foot-tall fellow guarding a Carson golf course along the San Diego Freeway? Well, Lisalee Anne Wells of Long Beach reports that the big hacker (see photo) gets a cameo role in the John Travolta disaster movie "Battlefield Earth." The surprise, she says, is that the big guy "has become part of the suburbs of a post-cataclysmic Denver. Gosh darn, that tsunami was a big one!"

Making a low-budget, independent road movie isn't an easy task. But writer-director Martin Hynes came up with an ingenious idea before production began on his film "The Go-Getter," which opens Friday. "Because it's shot in 35 millimeter, we did something nonstandard," Hynes says. "We did a test shoot. But it was a very artistically expanded idea of a test shoot."

In the back seat, the children sleep as my husband drives us into the coppery glare of the setting sun. He squints in silence, maneuvering through his own thoughts, and I stare out the window. After a weekend in the mountains, spent in retreat from the holiday rush that was threatening to obliterate the joy of the season, we are returning home. Filled with something at least approaching peace, I am trying very hard not to make lists.

The Loyola Marymount basketball team embarks this weekend on what may be the pivotal road trip of the season. The Lions play at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Monday, then face Marquette in Milwaukee on Wednesday before returning home. The team is on a roll, having won four straight and averaging 110 points, second in the nation behind Oklahoma. Moreover, the Lions beat two good teams last week--Loyola of Chicago and Holy Cross--after playing a series of weak sisters at home.

Plan your summer road trip using MapQuest.com. -- What's hot: I have to remind myself that websites evolve. I used to look up and print driving directions before running out the door. GPS solved that issue to a degree -- but not every car (or phone) has a GPS system. In planning summer travel, I found that MapQuest has all sorts of features that can make your road trip easier.

Cal State Dominguez Hills takes a road trip to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal State Bakersfield needing victories to stay in the running for the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. basketball title. The Toros, 14-6 overall, lost to conference leader UC Riverside over the weekend and missed a chance to pull into a tie for first place. Instead, they dropped to third at 4-3. The Toros play at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Bakersfield and at 8:05 Saturday at San Luis Obispo.