“Tom, do you want in on this?”

“Yeah.”

With Tom’s agreement, we bought Sarah what we judged to be the best cheese and meat tray we could find on the “road trip fund.”  After a brief discussion, Tom and I typed the following note to be included with the basket:

Sarah and Family,

Tom and I decided that we were going to save Washington state for you; we aren't going north of Portland until you get back. We send our condolences and hope everyone is in good spirits. Love you!

Our best,

 Joey & Tom
We readied our cameras and showered.  We headed across the street for a seven or eight dollar Indian lunch buffet, where every dish at the small buffet table was delicious, some in ways we had not experienced before.  We head to a supermarket and bought a bottle of whiskey, the contents of which were emptied into a water bottle.  This would be our six dollar beer killer.  We boarded a bus and rode it to the stop that we judged to be the closest to one of the festival entrances; the festival was in the middle of a park so none were that close.
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The weather was terrific, exactly the kind you hope for when live music is on hand. I called Sarah to say hello while Tom and I were deciding on our first performance of the day.  She had gotten home to Massachusetts safely.  I let her know that we should dedicate Tuesday evening as the new exclusive Tom Jones listening time and she laughed.

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Tom and I decided to see an Asian rock/jam band singer with a pacific flair.  We sat and listened on a somewhat distant hill for awhile.  We liked the music and the question of her ethnicity came up.  We got closer and closer, but the crowd thickened as we neared the stage.  Tom used his camera to zoom in and shot some photos, but we never did figure out her ancestry with any confidence.  When we consulted the schedule and realized the music was about done, we decided to beat the crowd and find our next performance.

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While we were walking between stages, we happened across some guys in striped clown drag doing a comedy performance.  We continued walking.

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After studying our program a bit more, we decided that this would be a good time to go to Winehaven, a tent featuring a few dozen wineries from the areas surrounding San Francisco.  This included wineries from Napa and Sonoma valleys, and Tom and I were anxious for a preview of these stops.   We had to buy tickets to exchange for wine, and the people selling the tickets informed us that for a little more money we could speak with the winemakers and chat while sampling their wines.  The opportunity was pretty cool but it added another cost to the already overpriced drinks, and we had to schedule a time, a notion that didn’t agree with us during a music festival.  We said no thanks and we bought tickets, which we immediately started exchanging for samples of wine.

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We tried some very good wines.  I could already tell that the wines on the west coast were dryer than upstate New York.  I liked this, and Tom finds it a recipe for heartburn.  He stuck with the sweeter of the available wines, even though they were few and still somewhat dry, and I mostly asked for the driest reds available.  The Black Eyed Peas started their performance on the main stage, and we immediately realized that they were taping and rebroadcasting the performance in Winehaven.  No need to go anywhere for Fergie and Co. - we kept tabs on the performance and continued to work through the winemakers’ stands.

We finished and found some food.  All of the food was like typical festival or fair food, only a little nicer and much more expensive.  The burritos and pizza were good, the coffee was fresh ground and each cup was made from its own ground beans that were disposed of after use.  I would have preferred one stand with two dollar hot dogs to save money but we worked with what was available.
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To round out our musical experiences for the night, with the Mars Volta, a band that I hadn’t listened to often.  I immediately knew why.  Their music alternated between whiney and what seemed like threatening, two of my least favorite characteristics in music.  Tom liked it.

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We left most of the way through the music and walked outside.  The bus rides we had taken thus far worked out fine, but took way too much time.  We had no idea how to get to the bar that we were going to, Amnesia, so we took a cab.  We hailed one and walked up just as another guy and girl our age were walking up as well.

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After a short discussion we decided that since we were going in the same direction, we would share the fare.  The unmarked “cab” was a very nice black luxury vehicle but had no meter.  We negotiated the fare before we entered.  We exited at Amnesia.  We entered the club and immediately realized that everyone was silent.

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A movie was playing opposite of the entrance of the club.  The seats were taken.  Tom and I ordered beers and found a spot on the ground to sit.  The movies were artsy independent short productions.  The first two were the type that you hardly understand the first time you see them, either very well thought out with deep meaning or just very confusing with no meaning at all, depending who is watching.  At one point a person responsible for setting up the movies asked the crowd if anyone know what scene a cameo appearance took place in, and which person it was.  I wasn’t really paying attention, but several people spoke up and said it was in a convenience mart scene, and it was the person behind the counter.  They had the scene right but apparently had the wrong person.  There were only two people in the scene, so I chuckled to myself and said “the guy in front of the counter.”  I was congratulated and given a DVD compilation of short films from some film festival or other.  I had to laugh inwardly, I had no idea what was going on in the movie, but my -ahem- superior observational skills and use of flawless logic had won the day.

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 They eventually put on a much less artsy documentary about materialism with high school students in Beverly Hills or some other affluent city in California.  It was long, boring, and didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know to some degree, and a pretty weird centerpiece for a bar on a Friday night.  We left.

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The pizza we ordered when we got back to the hotel room had all the toppings you can think of and was delicious.  Needless to say, we slept well.

-Joey

 
Okay, okay. It's my fault. Our recent lack of any activity whatsoever on this once regular and reputable "blog" of ours has been the result of delays on my part, and I'm sorry to all our readers. The last few weeks have seen me go through a rigorous training program at a new job, and yet another laptop charger - but excuses aside, I'm sorry to have left you all hanging.
So let's get back to it. On day 90, something that none of us had ever foreseen bore its head, as Sarah's family loss meant that she was going home for the remainder of the trip, and it was going to be just Joey and me frolicking up the west coast. Once Sarah had boarded her plane back east, Joey and I started moving toward the centerpiece of our visit to San Fran - the Outside Lands Festival in Golden Gate Park.
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We nestled the car into a spot at what appeared to be the only moderately affordable lodging in town at the Beck's Motor Lodge, which was more than $100 a night and featured a plug-in wall fan instead of air conditioning. Joey and I knew where we had to go but not exactly how to get there - but these people in the photo were also going to the park, getting directions from the bald fellow - so we followed them onto a bus and to the festival.

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A long walk to the ticket booth transitioned into a long wait in line, for foolish reasons that would have been averted if Sarah had been with us. We had the tickets printed out, waiting patiently for us in the "important papers" folder in the car. So when we went to will-call and asked for our tickets, which had been purchased in Sarah's name and not ours, they couldn't do anything for us. So we had to cab it all the way back to the motel, grab our tickets and get back to Golden Gate Park.
Luckily for us, tickets were still on sale at $50 more for a three-day pass than we paid with our early bird special. It only took about ten minutes before we found a buyer for Sarah's ticket at face value, which was a good deal for both sides.

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Once we were in, the smiling began. I didn't know what to expect in terms of the layout of Golden Gate Park, and had no idea as to the massive size of the place. I was aware of a concert by the Grateful Dead here in Lindley Meadow, back on August 13 in 1975, but had no idea that Lindley Meadow would host just one of six stages for the festival. The music was already in full swing when we walked in and got our wristbands for beer.

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We wandered around the grounds and got somewhat accustomed to the area, spotting Incubus on the main stage from a great distance. I've heard that Incubus lets loose during shows in a way that they can't on commercial radio, but the delay with our tickets had caused us to miss the majority of their performance. No matter, I said, because a short walk away led us to one of the festival's biggest draws, in my own personal opinion.

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Tom Jones was taking the stage on one side of Lindley Meadow, a man who should require no introductions. This guy is pushing 70 years old but he's still as suave and spectacular as anyone in the world. He had more energy than I would have ever expected, regularly wiping his brow with his hand and flicking the sweat onto people in front of the stage. He busted out every song I was aware of him performing, including "It's Not Unusual," "What's New, Pussycat," and of course, the one where he lets out a big scream while the saxophone riff plays behind him. He was so good and so lively that he gets his own photo montage.

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The sun went down and one of the festival's headliners, Pearl Jam, was playing on the main stage in Polo Field. But Tom Jones's electrifying performance had made us late, and left us with terrible viewing spots. The music sounded basically like Pearl Jam sounds on the radio, and it was enough to send us walking to the other end of the park to watch Thievery Corporation, a raucous group with great beats and a crowd that shook the ground with their dancing.

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This festival is like nothing I've seen before, for its extensive decoration, its massive size and more porta-potties than I've ever seen before. The first day was quite a time, thanks mostly to Mr. Tom Jones. But look for coverage on the next day coming soon from Joey - and when I say soon I really mean it.

-Tom

 
Last night I spent awhile planning out an exciting morning for us. I have been to San Francisco before and wanted to show the boys around the town before we headed over to the Outside Lands festival. I plotted out a few famous stops around Ghirardelli Square like Fisherman’s Wharf, Lombard Street and a quick jaunt across the Golden Gate Bridge and back. With all of this to do and a festival to get to in the early afternoon I figured out that waking up around 9:00 would allow us enough time to accomplish it all, so I set my alarm and went to bed.

I woke up abruptly to my phone sounding off. “Joey, wake up, that’s my alarm,” I said as I shook him awake. Joey hauled himself out of bed and headed off to the bathroom and then it hit me- the sound my phone had made was the ringer, not the alarm.

My grandmother has been very sick for a very long time and my dad had called a week or so ago to tell me she was coming to her last days. I checked the missed call on my phone this morning and “home” showed on the screen. I called back and my dad told me my grandmother had passed away in the night.

We were right across the highway from the airport so Joey helped me book a flight for 1:30 in the afternoon and my brother said he’d be there to pick me up in Hartford, CT about 12 hours later.

Joey took me down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast and waited with me for the shuttle over to the airport. I boarded the shuttle glad to be going home to be with my family though the reason was a sad one.

So, until Portland, America.

~Sarah