Slate has a whole series of articles written by Jack Shafer that attempt to call into doubt the recent NYT Magazine article 'The Girls Next Door'.

That article is about sex slaves in the U.S. and Mexico, and one of the people interviewed has this to say:

Andrea named trading hubs at highway rest stops in Deming, N.M.; Kingman, Ariz.; Boulder City, Nev.; and Glendale, Calif. Glendale, Andrea said, was a fork in the road; from there, vehicles went either north to San Jose or south toward San Diego.

In response, Shafer writes:

Other minor annoyances populate "The Girls Next Door." Landesman writes about a Glendale, Calif., highway rest stop that's used as a transfer point for sex slaves. Glendale is a densely populated Los Angeles suburb, like Pasadena or Burbank. If there's a highway rest stop there, it's news to me.

I think Shafer's reaching a bit, and I'm here to provide the news.

There are three freeways (to avoid confusion, highways and freeways will be called freeways henceforth) through Glendale: 2, 5, and 134. The 5 generally runs between San Diego and San Jose, so the smugglers would probably take that. However, they might get on the 2 or the 134 briefly.

There are no on-freeway rest stops in Glendale on any of those freeways, and there are none in Burbank or Pasadena either.

That is, as long as you define "rest stop" as the type you find on the 5 through the Central Valley, or on freeways elsewhere in California or the U.S. Those type of rest stops are almost always not associated with an offramp to a city street. They have their own dedicated on and off ramps, restrooms, picnic area, phones, and occasionally information booths or agents.

However, if you define "rest stop" as a place that many people use as a convenient stop, many places in Glendale, Pasadena, and Burbank qualify.

One that springs to mind is the street in Griffith Park across from the soccer fields. It provides access to the 5 and the 134. There are usually several cars parked there during the day. I don't know exactly what the people in those cars are doing, and I really don't want to know. There aren't too many bushes nearby (if you catch my drift). Sometimes someone will get out of his car and speak to someone in another car, but most of the time people sit there alone. Perhaps they're just - you guessed it - resting.

Another logical place to take a rest would be the Colorado exit on the 5. That leads to fast food restaurants, a 7-11, gas stations, and a large mall (the Glendale Galleria).

The Western Ave. exit on the 5 leads to a small park, a 99 Cents Store, and several fast food restaurants.

Taking the 134 east from the 5 leads to other fast food restaurants, such as an In-n-Out burger and, a couple miles past Glendale, the Eagle Rock Tommy's (where Lonewacko ate two chili dogs earlier this very day).

So, if "rest stop" is strictly defined, "Andrea" might have a credibility problem. However, if you accept the definition of a "place to stop," then Glendale certainly qualifies.

I know I've been through Kingman, Deming, and Boulder City, but I forget whether they have (strictly defined) rest stops. However, all three certainly qualify as "places to stop."

It's interesting that Glendale was chosen as a rest stop and not something like, say, East Los Angeles. After you leave Orange County, the 5 passes through areas which are populated more by acre-sized warehouses than row after row of fast food restaurants. As it loops around downtown, it passes through the general E.L.A. area, which is largely Mexican-American. If the smugglers were Mexican-American, you might expect that to be used as a transfer point. The fact that Glendale was chosen might indicate that the smugglers who use it are not Mexican-Americans.

Glendale has a large Armenian population, as well as people from the general Middle East area. It does not have that many Russians or other Slavs. One wouldn't want to necessarily implicate Armenians; many people might have trouble telling the difference between an Armenian and someone from Iran or Albania.

Glendale could have been chosen for reasons other than ethnicity, perhaps because it's more upscale than, say, Commerce.

(The Lonewacko Blog has been based out of both of those cities. There are many more amenities in Glendale than in Commerce; budget-minded epicures in Commerce may be required to visit beautiful Maywood or Whittier Blvd. in E.L.A.)