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Blog - September 2007 |
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This page stores my blog entry from September 2007. The entry is from sometime after Labor Day weekend.
Pam and Dave's Excellent Hippie Adventure / Reading Accomplishments / Pam is Not a Harry Potter Fan / 2008 HOF Thoughts "I'm goin' up the country, baby don't you wanna go?
Our first leg of the trip, getting to the Bay Area, was uneventful. We left a little later than we intended, but we didn't worry. We drove to Concord's BART station and took BART into town. In looking at a map online, it seemed that the suggested station to dismount, Powell St., was a bit farther away than the one at 16th St/Mission, so we took the latter. This would lead us on a walk up 16th, over to 17th, and eventually to Stanyan and up to what would become Lincoln, the street on the south side of Golden Gate Park. I had some prescience and looked to see if I could find a topographical map of San Francisco, but to no avail. I wish we did. Besides getting a little turned around, our ultimate path took us straight up a fairly steep hill. We bought water half-way up the hill and kept marching. Eventually we got to the edge of Golden Gate Park, but we were already exhausted. According to the official concert web site, we still had over 30 blocks to walk. We made it about 25 when we started hearing loud music, from where we made a bee-line to the venue. We made it there about two hours after it started. Fortunately, we had a good six hours to experience good music, good food, and soak in the vibe and atmosphere. We each bought an awesome sausage sandwich from some place calling themselves "San Francisco BBQ" (they had the shortest line, and the sausages looked great). Sitting and eating: we could not have been any happier with these two at this point, so we indulged. We could hear some of the concert going on, and given how many people were there that day, it was pretty much the best we were going to get on that. Eventually, we got up and looked around the booths. Sadly, it seemed like there wasn't a whole lot of stuff, but I guess that fits with the general anti-commercialism that these events try to represent. There were a few vintage poster booths, one for clothes, one or two with jewelry, and a few that were for different causes. About half were food/drink booths. Later in the day, we wandered into a booth for Charm "N" Candy Bouquet, who displayed and sampled their wine fudge (fudge made with different wines). It was very good! We didn't find any booths selling the posters that were shown on the official site. We eventually found said booths inside the concert venue proper (this was separating the food and merchandise booths by steel fencing; I don't know why they bothered). The poster booth had 29 posters (they added three more from what's shown on the web site) as a complete set for $200, or they were selling them individually for $20. I started looking through their catalog of posters (which was actually their program; selling for $5) and had my selection narrowed down to two: the Last Supper immitation, and the flower-in-gun poster. The woman helping us mentioned to another that some of the posters were sold out, and the two I wanted were among them. So, I shifted my attention to the t-shirt side, where I bought one there for $20 (see image above for what the poster looked like). We then found a shady spot along one of the paved footpaths and flopped down for a long time. From our vantage-point, we could hear the concert clearly but not too loudly. My main reason for going was to see/hear the music, after all. I heared Canned Heat (with the aforementioned "Going Up the Country"), Taj Mahal, a version of Jefferson Starship (performing "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love"), Country Joe McDonald leading the crowd with his "Gimme an 'F'" chant (and no, it was not the "F-I-S-H" one, either) followed by the "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag", and Moby Grape. I think I missed Ray Manzarek's appearance, since he apparently performed behind someone reading poetry, and I also missed New Riders of the Purple Sage. But I got to hear a lot of cool music from some very cool people. Heck, I even got to hear Wavy Gravy proclaim that they were serving breakfast in bed to 100,000 people (though I don't believe there were that many there). As with any countercultural happening, many countercultural elements worked its way through the crowd. Several people passed out fliers and papers, which ranged from support for medical marijuana, vote for Ron Paul, and the Los Angeles Free Press. A few people lugged in beer and sold it to passers-by. Mostly they sold Budweiser, but I did see some Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or something like that. Alcohol showed up all over the place. If it wasn't beer, it was wine or, for one person, a 1.75L bottle of vodka. I saw at least three or four people selling marijuana. One of them had cookies, which may or may not have been pot-laced. At least a couple were selling pipes, and one person carried around this huge pipe that must have been about 3-4" in diameter. The bowl was about the size of a teacup. One couple sat down and sold something that looked like a mango. I'm honestly not sure if it was a mango or not; they looked like mangoes, but I have a feeling that wasn't all that they were selling with them (not at $10 a pop, at least). Either I was blind, or nudity was nonexistent. I'm a little disappointed about that, but not particularly. Even one of the people on stage made note of it, saying that the only difference between now and 40 years ago was that fewer people were clothed back then. (Honestly, it didn't help that there wasn't a convenient pond for skinny-dipping). Somehow, Pam and I managed to stick around until 6, when we started our long hike back to BART. Pam took a look at a map at one of the MUNI stops and figured walking straight through the park, through Haight-Ashbury, and up Market would be flatter and easier of a walk; she was right. There would have been some uphill climbing to get to the park, but it didn't seem quite as vicious. So, we took that route, and it certainly was a lot shorter. I even got to see Haight-Ashbury, which, for some unforseen reason, I have never visited before. We hit up a small Mexican burrito place for dinner and hit BART. The BART ride back out of SF wasn't as crowded as it was coming in. We welcomed my car as we got in to drive off. I'm certain that we drove the same way that we came in, and for some reason we never saw I-680. I believe we went the wrong way on Willow Pass Road, since Highway 4, which we took, was in the other direction. In taking Highway 4 to Stockton and then back home, I realized that we could skip having to pay any bridge tolls. Feeling rather happy about this, I took Highway 4 and prepared to get to I-5 when we got into Stockton. This plan would have worked brilliantly if I hadn't seen the sign that showed Highway 160. In seeing that, I realized that I could cut our commute down a bit, so I took it. Well, not too long after taking that, we came along a bridge ... with the same cost for the toll as the bridge we crossed on our way in. So, we payed that, wandered around on 160 until we found a path to I-5, then took that home. We both had an awesome time. I have a t-shirt and good memories to carry with me. We both did get some minor sunburns in rather odd places, and I have a bit of a hitch in my gait from some soreness in my hips. But, other than that, we survived. I think that'll be the last time we try to walk 5 miles over very hilly terrain like that. Now, the next event I hope to see will be some sort of 40th anniversary of Woodstock. That's still a couple of years away, but I can hope and maybe plan on going to that.
********** ********** I think I've broken a person reading-speed record. Over the past two weeks, I've read two books. Not "Little Golden Books" or Dr. Seuss books, but 500+ page novels. I read Dan Brown's "Deception Point" and Vince Flynn's "Term Limits". Reading some 1100+ pages over two weeks is a pretty significant accomplishment for me. ********** ********** My girlfriend is not a Harry Potter fan. She has now read all seven books, but she's not a Harry Potter fan. She has seen all of the movies (except for the one currently out, but I'm sure this will be fixed), but she's not a Harry Potter fan. She knows all of the characters, how they are interrelated and interact, and cries when one dies, but she is not a Harry Potter fan. She will continue watching the movies as they come out, but don't read too much into it. My girlfriend is not a Harry Potter fan. ********** ********** 2008 will provide a challenge to the Baseball Writers of America. Even though I remember nearly all of the players
available, the "Hall of Fame" level of the selection is really low. Given the preliminary lists I've
seen, I think the following will get voted in next year: |
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