5-21-04

5-21-04
Planes, Trains and Automobles.

I got enough rest last night. I was still excited about being on ‘Unscrewed’ that it was a little bit hard to winded down. I worked on my blog and posted it on the web.
I got up and practiced guitar and wrote my chorale. I had another hour before I had to check out so I kicked it for a while.

Then I started to get my stuff. I carried too much. I bought this backpack that had a handle with rollers for five bucks at Goodwill before I left Texas. I’m glad I did. I was able to put the 30 pound bad on top of it and roll it without any problems.

I checked out of the hotel. $250 bucks! And again no AC, no internet, no full cable, really no nothing, but it was in downtown. As I checked out the bell hop asked if I wanted a cab, I said no.

So I started to walk to the BART station that was about a mile away. I had a vague idea where it was, so I keep on walking. As I walked, I noticed that almost everyone carried some types of bags around. From the business people to the homeless. Some of the homeless had broken broom sticks, I didn’t have a problem with any of them except for them asking for ‘spare change’ from time to time. When I said no, they ask another person walking. I guess this type of ‘soft pan handling’ was allowed in the City.

As I walked I saw on bum that was selling stuff. I have seen many bums or homeless have their own flee market anywhere on the side walk. I saw that this bum had a TechTV hat. So I asked him how much for it, he said two bucks. I said how about a dollar and he agreed. So I got me a TechTV hat for one dollar. Irony, thy name is Herbert. I bet anything that this bum had never even seen TechTV.

I made it to the BART station and I had to go down some stairs. To my surprise a young lady offered to help me carry my stuff. She looked like she could be a student and I was happy to see someone offered to help this old Texas boy out.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how to buy a ticket and for how much. I needed to get to Pleasant Hill, it was $4.15 to get there from the middle of San Francisco. That’s the best deal I found the whole time that I was in the City.

Another eleven minutes and I was on the BART. I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to say anything about the amount of stuff I was bringing on, but I saw many other folks with travel bags, bikes and other stuff that was big. I guess that people do this all of the time.

It took about forty minutes to get to Pleasant Hill. My best friend in Cali’s mom works a few minutes from this station, so she is going to pick me up to take me to Vacaville.
And this is where I am right now. More to come. So far it has only been the trains part, I still have the automobile and the plane part to come today.


Well Dave’s mom was so nice to pick me put. It was about and hour and half before we got to Vacaville. I got to see my old college and I can’t believe how much Cali has grown. I couldn’t even see my old high school due to all of the new houses. There are new houses everywhere that I could see.

It was great to see Dave again. He took me to the paintball shop that he is a part owner of. It looks great. I had a chance to see Jerry and Rob again. That was great.

We hung out there for about an hour then we went to the airport in Sacramento to get to Vegas. The airport was fine. We sat in a restaurant to watch basketball game since we had about two hours to kill before the flight.

Southwest is like a cattle car, it is a free for all to get on the airplane. I was going to gate check my guitar, but the guy was lazy and told me to carry it on board. We sat down and this girl need to put a big picture that wouldn’t fit in the isle sit. So she sat between us and she was cool even when I started to talk about Star Trek. I guess she had no where else to go, so she might was well be a good sport.

I was tired on the flight. Plane, trains and automobiles all in one day. It was a smooth flight and we were in Vegas at night. You could see all of the lights from the Strip.

Ok, it took us a while to find my check in luggage. The airport looks like they are fixing it up, so there is a lot of the station that you can’t go in and it is confusing to try and find stuff. It took a while to find the luggage, but we did. Then we found the shuttle to our hotel. This is a guy that you can tell that hates his job and takes it out on his customers. I can’t say that he was rude, he was more of a jerk.

Well, we got to the Westward Ho, and it took about 45 minutes to check in. I didn’t realize that the Ho was about like a Motel 6. The travel agent said it was by Circus Circus, so I told that it had to be cool. But since it was $318 for air travel and hotel, you get what you pay for. But it was clean, the bed was soft, the AC worked and it was right on the Strip, so it was cool.

We walked around for a few minutes, but we were both zonked, so we when back the hotel to get some rest.