Beat Poets and Bluegrass

We woke up early Friday and began the drive back to San Francisco for the last time. Determined to not pay bridge tolls and avoid the interstate as much as possible, we decided to

try and find our way through back roads from Modesto to San Jose, then up to San Francisco from there. After a few wrong turns and some educated guessing, we felt we were on the right road to San Jose. The scenery changed from vast farmlands to on either side of the road to rolling hills of golden grass as we entered then began to climb yet another mountain range. This road was about as country as you can get. After about 20 minutes of not seeing a single car drive by, we turned the corner to see a pickup truck urging on 6 or so cows in front of it. We couldn't decide if this was on purpose or if a fence had broke and the truck was filling in for the sheep dog. The driver stopped for a second so I could pass and we continued down the road for a mile until we reached another crowd of cows on the road. The only problem was these cows were stagnant, just standing around, not moving like their friends. Lucky for us there wasn't too many of them and after CJ gave them a little holler, they made a path wide enough to pass through. We drove past a number of small farms, still not seeing any cars and beginning to doubt whether or not this road was the right one or not. Next thing I know I drove right over a tarantula! I stopped the van and looked in the rearview mirror and

sure enough, there was a tarantula in the middle of the road. I put CJ in reverse, not worried about any traffic coming our way, and drove right over it again, put CJ in park and hopped out to

investigate further. By this time the spider was scared stiff, not moving, just pensively gazing up at us hoping that we weren't going to kill him. He was real hairy, as big as my fist, and looked very threatening. I have never had a fear of spiders but I have also never been particularly fond of them. Neither Katie nor I had ever seen a wild tarantula before and it tickled us to death that we got to see one on this California back road. We continued on toward San Jose and actually spotted 2 more of these monsters, though the first one was by far the biggest. The rest of the drive was uneventful in comparison and we arrived in San Fran around noon. We stopped in at Starbucks for a while before Kyle got home from work to check us back in to the Horton Hippie Hotel. That night we went down to the Lower Haight and met up with Angella and some people from her work. We started off watching some rugby at a sports bar then finished up the night at Noc Noc, an awesome bar just across the street. Your just going to have to check out the website on this one, this place is beyond description. On Saturday we woke up and lounged around in the morning being sure to fully enjoy the comforts of a bed again. Ever since Hardly Strictly I have known that there is a disc golf course in Golden Gate Park and I have been itching to try it out; today that itch would be scratched. Kyle, Angella, Katie, and I all descended on GGP around 11 a.m. dressed for the rainy weather and ready to disc. The course was great and I have honestly never played a more well put together and maintained course in my life. It took us about 2.5 hours to finish discing and by this time we had worked up quite an appetite. We picked up Theresa, a friend I used to work with at Sears, along the way and headed to 21st Amendment for lunch. This place was the site of Angella and Kyle's first date and coincidentally was the first stop on our Angella-provided tour. Ever since we first arrived at the HHH Angella has been wanting to take us on a guided tour of her fabulous city but because of various circumstances we had not gotten around to it until today. Unfortunately the tour was literally dampened by the intense rain that hit the city which made none of us ever want to leave the car. Since

Theresa had recently moved to the city and because we hadn't had a chance to hang out with her yet, she came on the tour with us. We started along the coast, driving past Ocean Beach which offered us great views of the storm coming in over the ocean. Our next stop was Golden Gate Bridge where the rain again got the chance to pelt us, this time aided by the high winds that frequent the bridge area. Being outnumbered by 3 girls, the third stop on the tour was to do some shopping at Angella's favorite sporting goods outlet, Sports Basement. All I know is for a sporting goods store they sure had a lot of cloths and after 30 minutes of shopping Katie walked away with a new pair jeans and I had a new disc as a consolation prize. We got to drive through the Presidio twice after Angella made a wrong turn, then continued on to Lombard Street which we drove slowly down, admiring the beautiful flowers along the way. By this time it was beginning to get dark, the constant rain not helping, and when we got to Coit Tower, their was no point to even get out and look around, the visibility was so poor. Undismayed by the weather, Angella drove us down to Chinatown where Katie and I were looking forward to seeing dead ducks hanging in every window. On the way to Chinatown, Angella recognized

a bar that she thought we would be interested in: Vesuvio. This bar was the former hangout of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and other greats of the beat generation. The atmosphere inside was extremely chill yet visibly exciting. Game 6 of the Giants series was on and you could easily draw a line

down the room of people who cared and those who didn't, though both scenes seemed perfectly at home here and not at odds. For the most part we ignored the game, Angella took a mysterious walk every now and then to check the score, and enjoyed the legendary atmosphere and the light hearted company that can only be experienced between good friends long separated. The evening wore on and soon it was time to change locations. The main reason that Katie and I were in town this weekend was to see a concert, Greensky Bluegrass. I have been seeing their shows for what seems like forever, way back to the days they were playing Thursday nights at Bell's Brewery. Katie and I have seen them twice together in Chicago and when we found out they were going to be in San Francisco this weekend, we just had to come. They were playing at the Boom Boom Room on Fillmore Street which is where Angella ended our tour by dropping Theresa, Katie, and me off at the front door. The concert was awesome, one of those experiences that really can't be described unless you were their to witness it. It is currently two days later and I still do not have my voice completely back. The band played until 3 a.m. and Katie and I danced every minute they were on stage, finally leaving after the second encore.