Fixing my Mistakes

 Oct 11 2013

With one of those “magical” slights of hand, I erased about 2 hours of work and writing that I put into the blog yesterday. This computer business is both a blessing and a curse as we all know. Regardless of the inconvenience of this latest mishap, if ya’ want to know the truth I enjoy posting on this blog. My journal is almost full, and this is proving to be a satisfying replacement. Thanks to the new tablet I am sitting on the beach at Half Moon Bay just south of San Fran. It is cloudy for the first time in almost 2 weeks, not too cold (but I do have my hat and gloves on, and even though it is only 8am numerous “surfer” types are on the water. I say types because there are variations on the theme: some use paddles, this morning some seem to be on small “boogie” boards. The trucks and vans parked in our campground (right on the beach – I see water from our tent) have what we’d think of as surf boards strapped to their tops. They all have to wear wet suits though, and yippee!, there go the pelicans. I better get back to where the story got lost.

Warren Hellman is the man responsible for this festival. It is his face featured on the banner that hangs behind the Banjo stage (the one we spent most of our time at). He was a local business man with a passion for music. He was a banjo player himself and decided to host (and pay for) this festival over 13 years ago. I assume it was both his gift to the community, and an opportunity to connect with musicians and play. He passed away within the last year, and there was much remembering and honouring of this man. The crowds spoke volumes: clearly he had created a great event. 

 

One thing I have noticed since entering California – they party much more publically than we do in Canada. Booze was consumed openly in the park, and enterprising people would head to the grocery, pick up cheap beer and ice, and sell 3$ cans out of their coolers to anyone who was in need of “thirst-quenching”. Some sold jewellery, or hippie headbands from boxes, and gangha was going for 2$ a joint, and I saw at least one box of gangha “treats” for sale. There were no organized beer tents or craft vendors – just plain old free-market. Someone told us it was a wonderful introduction to SF culture.  Being a free festival, possibly, the place was packed and Bar and I can't agree on numbers, but think in the order of 250,000 - 300,00 people. It was uncharacteristically hot and very dusty. At times we had to leave our seats simply to find some shade. We figure this might be good practice for India.

 

But of course, this was not all we did. We walked from Golden gate Park to our hostel both nights (about 8km – practice for Nepal and beyond). A great way to see neighbourhoods, homeless people, and discover cool restaurants. We ate cheap soft-shell tacos in a Mexican grill that were so tasty, they’ve become one of my new favourite foods. We will sample more before we leave the coast! We also went on a free walking tour with a company run by 2 young guys – Wild SF Tours. They are free, although the guides work for tips, and they pride themselves on showing tourists some of SF’s lesser known history and sights or at least they go beyond the standard bus tours. We toured the Castro and Mission districts with our guide J-Jo, who told great stories and employed the guitar he carried on his back to serenade us with his original, kinda’ hokey, songs about SF. Cute. We were the only people above 30 I’d bet, out of the 20 or so on the tour. Interesting. It was particularly meaningful to tour the Castro; the home of Harvey Milk. We saw stuff (see photos) the likes of which we’ve never seen publically in our small circle of life. This is good – expanding our views. Public nudity has been banned in SF (I guess at one time it was tolerated – as long as you used a towel on public benches) but we did see 1 guy with only a hat and a gold-sequined “sleeve” on. Need I mention where the sleeve was? Apparently this is somewhat common; people protesting the nudity ban and sticking up for their rights. I did not take the photo. We saw really just a handful of the murals in the Mission district and we toured them on our own; we don’t really know the history or stories associated with them. The Women’s House murals (painted in the later 1990s) were the ones that impressed me the most.

GREAT cookies - but they were out of the penis-shaped macaroons. Not sure I'd have bought one anyways

 

Entrance to The Castro Theatre - music and rep type movies.

Our Wild SF guide J-Jo - honestly, how many guides show you these kind of sights?

 We walk and walk in cities. It is cheap and we cover lots of ground. We love to stop in coffee shops off the beaten track, or small lunch spots (our tour guide took a number of us into a tiny hole-in-the-wall spot in the Mission for Vietnamese food that was cheap and fab. We love sampling food in new places – that is one thing we have learned about ourselves. Barry loves to sample beer too… but not too much. Thank goodness it is cheap down here, even the good beer. Lots of good beer and coffee. We walked to Pier 39 and along the Embarcadero to the historic ferry building and Tuesday Farmers Market. As always, there was so much we did not do…..

Beautiful, entertaining, noisy and stinky sea lions. For decades they have made this pier this home. Truly a delight to watch their antics.

 

 

Dolores Park in the Mission - overlooking the city. Interesting hang-out spot. We came back later.

Mushroom stand at the market at the old ferry building. Made us think of Jim, Candice and Harley!

 

From SF we traveled to Redwood City – maybe 25 miles S to my step-brother Russell and wife Heather’s lovely, warm, comfortable home. They and their 3 Irish Greyhounds (Ramsey, Mia, and Giovanni – all rescues and SO cute) entertained us, wined and dined us in style and gave us the gift of some family time. We spent the better part of 1 day shopping or last minute items we need for the next leg and provided us with an opportunity to relax in a way that s hard to do when camping. I did yoga on the deck, Barry swam in the pool, we kidded around with the neighbour’s kids in the hot tub, and slept in Heather’s yoga studio. Plus these two have GREAT taste in wine and Russell is a great cook. We return there in about a week and a half to leave our car. I’ll take some photos then.

 

This travel adventure has helped me in so many ways. I’ve watched myself literally bump into physical objects; my rib is feeling pretty good but now you should see my toe. I’m becoming aware of how impatient I am (no grinning, okay). Over two years ago, when Ruby was working in AB, and travelling through BC and Mexico we would sometimes talk on the phone. She mentioned how hard it was to keep track of her stuff and that she was losing her stuff. I thought at the time that she just a little spacy, and a bit of an “airhead” (sorry Ruby) but now we are losing our stuff, and I can appreciate what she was talking about (we’ve lost: a hat, shirt, undershirt, sleeping bag, light and food). This alone is such a valuable lesson for me. The list goes on and on. I guess this is part of why we do this kind of thing, we learn about places and ourselves.