All we did on Day 5 was drive.
And that is only a
slight exaggeration.
We left Johanna's friends' house by noon.
(photo: J Murph)
Couldn't find a grocery store, so stopped at a taco truck for breakfast, then hit the freeway.
(photo: Jessy)
We got completely lost in the snarl of interchanges, and ended up stuck in stop-and-go traffic in Santa Monica. We looked to our left, and there was the beach! And the ocean! Fog (smog?)-obscured, but still, folks in swimsuits and carrying towels.
(photo: Jessy)
It was at about this point in the trip that Jessy and I realized: California is a mixtape. Like, Santa Monica isn't just Santa Monica- it's a Sheryl Crow song. Or a Patti Smith song. Or Joni Mitchell, or the Stones, or an episode of
The L Word. The whole fucking state is covered in such a sheen of pop culture references, how do you experience it without always having all of those images mediate the experience? Even two kids such as us, who spent four college years doing media literacy, were a little dazzled by the intersection of real-life and pop culture.
But back to Santa Monica. We finally got off the freeway and found ourselves in the middle of what seemed to be the bougiest part of town. Found a Starbucks, paid four dollars (!) to use the internet, and resorted to a Mapquest rescue. Half an hour later, we were on our way north.
We were supposed to be in Arcata by 9pm. We left LA proper at 1pm. Sarah and Claire called the booker in Arcata to tell him that we wouldn't be to Arcata until 11ish, hoping that we'd still be able to play- but he said not even to bother, the show would be over again, no hard feelings.
Tour Lesson #512: do not try to drive across California in one day. Take two days, take a day off betwen shows if you have to; just don't try to go 650 mi in one day. Even on a regular roadtrip, it would've been ambitious, but at this point in the trip, it just wasn't gonna work.
So we aimed for Redding- Sarah and Claire figured that taking I-5, instead of Hwy 101, would shave two hours off the drive, and with the help of Claire's mom and AAA, made reservations at a motel there.
With that taken care of, all there was left to do was drive.
And drive.
And drive.
It actually wasn't so bad. We talked, we napped. We listened to music, we sat quietly. We stopped every hour or so for either food or gas or bathroom or to switch drivers or all four. We spent a lot of time driving in and out of places like this:
(photo: me)
We hit the Bay Area right around dinner time. With directions from Songs for Moms, we drove into SF in the midst of a thick fog. We were kind of euphoric to be back in the Bay. Driving past shrouded downtown, Jessy said even the names of streets were gay. "Octavia? Come on." For the first time on the trip, we had to put on long pants and sweatshirts, and we realized that summer was ending.
Parked on Valenica, wandered around, so happy- we felt like we could fit in here, surrounded by weirdos like us, gay ads on the street corners, kept repeating, "I could totally see myself living here."
Until finally, we both turned to each other and were like, "Hey. Do you wanna MOVE here? Like, seriously? Like, asap, within the year?"
I've known for a while that I need to move out of Bellingham soon. When we left for tour, I was leaning towards Vancouver BC- so many nice people there, queers doing rad stuff, good music. But my heart has been won over by the Bay. I cannot remember ever feeling so at home in a city that was not B'ham, feeling like I could make this my home and help make things happen and really feel like I was doing something. I guess in the same way that a lot of my friends feel about Portland.
But oh, Oakland! SF! Now that I have made up my mind, the next year is kind of weighing heavy on me- I have a new lease in Bellingham, and I'll be here for a while still, but I am impatient for what comes next.
So here Jessy and I are, walking down Valenica, utterly infatuated with our freshly-formed plans, and then we stumble on this most amazing thing. Clarion Alley cemented our just-expressed love for that city, catching us at our most vulnerable moment and sealing the deal with us.
It was dusk and this is what we saw.
(photos: Jessy)
The whole alley was mural-ed, even garage doors. Climbing flowers draped some, layers of graffiti on others. It was dusk, and we tried to photograph the whole thing. We were breathtaken and shamelessly touristing, and when we emerged at the other end of the alley, we started talking the logistics of our move.
(Back at home, I dug around and learned about Clarion Alley and the Chicano Mural Movement of the '70s, of the
Cockette's warehouse, more about the history of the Mission. But stumbling upon it, as we did, was nothing short of magic.)
We wandered toward downtown San Francisco for dinner with Sarah and Claire, at some cafe where apparently Bill Cosby once liked to hang out? A short break from driving; then back on the road.
It's hard to wrap one's mind around the idea that you have spent your entire day in a car. More than a full shift at work, more time than I ever spend doing any one thing, that is the amount of time spent driving across the length of this endless state. Better not to think about it too much.
Claire checked us into a two-bed motel room in Redding at 11pm. Jessy and I waited until the night manager had gone back to bed before we snuck in. Considering some of the stories I've heard, we spent a remarkable number of nights sleeping in beds. The huge air conditioner in the room growled all night, and I slept so soundly with that chilly white noise.
