Going To California - Day Five - Bakersfield To San Francisco

Departure Bakersfield - 54 degrees and clear
Arrival San Francisco - 59 degrees and cloudy

Sundown - 4:55 pm
Miles Traveled - 253 miles
States Visited - 1
Major Cities - San Jose, CA; San Francisco, CA
Average Speed - 62 mph



Can you know a city by staying there one night? No, it would be impossible to know the geography let alone the heart and the spirit of a city in an evening.

Can you try to see an entire city in one night? Yes, if you have the proper guides and a willingness to stay up until 4:00 am on your internal clock.

When I knew that my trip was going to be ending in San Francisco it pleased me greatly. It was one of the five Great American Cities I hadn't visited yet and, as someone who had always though himself a little Beat and Boho, it was like the mothership calling me home. Add on the number of Beat/Boho friends I have who are already on the mothership and it was going to be on like Genghis Khan.

The tricky thing is I only had one night. I knew I wasn't going to see everything or even everything I wanted to see. With the right priorities I could get a good taste of San Francisco.

So I got into town, took the BART into the city, met Schwa, saw the circus, had some drinks, met Meg, we all got picked up by Viv, the four of us went to the sushi place, I ate a prawn head in the most digusting way possible, was met by Will, rode over to City Lights, said "Bye" to Meg and Viv, went into the Poetry Room, got my picture taken on the stairs, got drinks at Vesuvio, walked up Russian Hill (to the TOP!), got in the car, talked to Boston, rode to the Golden Gate Bridge, took some blurry photos, rode across the Golden Gate Bridge, took some blurry video, rode to Haight-Ashbury, got my picture in front of the street signs, met up with Jamie, had a beer, walked into Golden Gate Park, saw the outside of a museum I'll need to go into next time, stood and BS-ed in an amphitheater, walked back to the car, dropped off Jamie and Schwa and was dropped at my hotel by Will.

The only thing I know is I need to come back.

Going To California - Day 4 - Flagstaff to Bakersfield

Departure Flagstaff - 35 degrees and clear
Arrival Bakersfield - 82 degrees and clear

Sundown - 4:48 pm
Miles Traveled - 482 miles
States Visited - 2
Major Cities - Ummmm...
Average speed - 70 mph

A Sampling of Gas Prices
$2.11 Kingman, AZ
$3.29 Bullhead City, CA
$2.25 Junction of Hwys. 395 & 58
$1.99 Bakersfield, CA



One of the things that's both neat and frightening about growing up is you start to deal with your parents as adults. Rather you're dealing with them for the first time as an adult yourself. In fact it may be the first time you get to talk with them about grown up stuff at all.

Since thirty is just up around the bend for me I'm actively working on redefining my individual relationships with my parents. I want to reset the structure of our realtionships to accomodate two adults instead of one adult and one "child." More importantly I want to actually know my parents. Neither of them are particularly old and we'll have at least another thirty to forty years together. Up until now they've had to be models from which I might base my behavior. But now that I'm pretty much a fully-formed adult I can look and see them as they are.

More importantly, if your family was nuclear like mine, these are the two people who have ostensibly known you for the longest. They were the ones who can tell you the most about who you were before you remembered and even tell you a lot about the stuff you do remember except from an adult's perspective. They really are the mirror of your experiences and if they are honest and respectful of you they can tell you more about yourself than any other person not walking around in your skin.

So when I was having dinner with my mom last night, we just talked like I normally would with any other adult in my life. We talked about the election, we talked about my sister's wedding, we talked about my upcoming job prospects. But mostly we talked about each other and ourselves. That is to say we talked as adults.

Going To California - Day 3 - Amarillo To Flagstaff

Departure Amarillo - 47 degrees and clear
Arrival Flagstaff - 55 degrees and clear

Sundown - 5:15 pm
Miles Traveled - 608 miles
States Visited - 3
Major cities - Albuquerque, NM
Average speed - 66 mph

A Sampling of Gas Prices
$1.97 San Jon, NM
$2.15 Santa Rosa, NM
$1.95 Albuquerque, NM
$2.99 Allentown, AZ
$2.69 Flagstaff, AZ

Five Words Young Jeezy Shouts In The Background of "Put On"
Aye
Ha Ha
Hey
Whoooo
Yeah (pron. J-eah)



If it isn't completely obvious and exactly what eveyone else is thinking, I'm sure I could do this "driving across the country" thing all the time. There is something deep in my soul that loves the Kerouac idea of just having the open road in front of you. Going, as Sir Edmund Hillary would say, because it's there.

However I don't think I'd want to do it professionally. Putting on this many miles in a day because you have to is hard. I need to keep driving for that next stop on the map, the next spot where I have a hotel reservation. I probably would've made the same stops as scheduled except I would've done them with a little more generous allowances for stopping and seeing the countryside.

As it is, I'm enjoying watching these United States roll by my windshield. I've seen both purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain. The amazing thing about our country is people spread out all the way across this diverse continent feel they are all involved in the same great thing going forward. As the man himself said, "There are no red states. There are no blue states. There is only the United States." And what's more American than getting out at seeing this country we love.