Thursday morning my wife woke me up at 8:30am. Far too early after the excitement of the night before. We walked up to the parking lot behind the Whisky to hit the road towards San Diego to visit my in-laws. Once in the lot we see feet sticking out the window of Doug's truck. Lee had decided to sleep in the truck to put Doug's mind at ease about our gear. Plus he has issues sleeping in a room with as many people as we had at the hotel. He kind of woke up as we got ready to take off in the Toyota.
We made our way through LA morning rush hour to the freeway. Just then my wife told me she was far to tired to drive. Something that honestly irritated me to know end. I was woken up at 8:30 to hit the road and now I have to make the drive. Oi! Anyway, she pulled off and I took over behind the wheel. Hopped in the HOV lane and head on down toward San Diego.
We rolled in around 10:00 and called my father in-law who drove back from his shop to let us inside. We got in and we were both relived to take a shower and a bit of a nap. A little later as I walked over to Starbucks for some coffee I got a call from the other fellas. They told me that they were heading toward Carlsbad and were going to find a beach or park or something to crash out and catch some sleep.
My wife's mother showed up shortly after we got there. She had been picking up my sister in-law at LAX early that morning. She had flown in from Florida to see my wife and the rest of her family. We then all decided some nice rolled tacos from La Posta was a good idea. La Poata is a small taco stand in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego. We got back to the condo with some dozen or so tacos and by that time my father in-law and brother in-law were all back. So we sat back and ate our dinner, which instantly destroyed my stomach. These tacos are what my brother in-law referred to as Mexi-trash. Something that my northwestern stomach is not accustom to. Since they have been eating there for so long they had built up an immunity to Mexi-trash style of cooking.
Around 6:00 or so my wife and I hit the road to get to Hensley's Flying Elephant. Some 45 minutes north of San Diego. It was right off the freeway. It looked like a converted Denny's. Had that token Denny's style architecture. As it turned out it was a very cool bar. Good sized show room. We happened to be the only band playing that night. Which was a good thing. We wanted to go on early and get back on the road early so we could get back north of LA and miss the traffic to head for Oakland the next night.
There's was a fair amount of people there for a Thursday night. A pleasant surprise, because I didn't really expect much anything. We got set up and did our sound check as my wife's family showed up. Her parents, both sisters, her brother and her cousin were all in attendance. Shortly there after much of Lee's family showed up as well.
We went into our set, most of the folks in the bar stayed out in the main bar area. A few trickled into the show room as our set progressed. We played pretty good that night despite the fact we were all pretty tired. There was a small incident of instrument cables before we went on. One of Wes' came up missing. Not entirely sure where it went, but I'm amazed that the only thing that came up missing throughout the entire tour was a cable.
We finished up our set and hopped off stage. Then suddenly a mad rush on merchandise took place. After finishing up all we had left was a hand full of CDs, 1 t-shirt and a few girls tank tops. I was amazed how much we ended up selling that night, just because of the amount of people who stayed outside the showroom. I guess it doesn't mean they weren't listening.
We had our pictures taken with varying family members and Lee started pontificating with my father in law while he drank an obscenely large glass of whisky. We got the gear loaded up. And by this time my wife had decide to stay down in San Diego and fly back on Sunday. So the tour finally took it's first casualty.
So my wife and I said our goodbyes, we all hopped in to the cars. Wes and Doug in his truck and Lee and I in the car. We set out to make it back to Buttonwillow Junction for the night. It was roughly a 3 hour drive to get there. All of tired. It made this leg of the trip rather difficult. Everything was just fine up to the base of the Grapevine.
Before embarking over the Grapevine we stopped for a bathroom break and me downing some more Pepto in order to curb the stomach pain of the Mexi-trash tacos. Lee and Wes opted to partake in some Wendy's chicken nuggets which Lee promptly decided he hated. The horrible stench permeated the car the rest of the way.
We head up the Grapevine. At night this just flat out sucks. The lighting is nonexistent. They had been doing some sort of road construction through much of. They had grated a portion of the roadway as well so lines were impossible to see. Construction cones shutting down two lanes, reflected light back at you making it that much more difficult. Eye a little blurry from exhaustion played tricks on you as you try to gauge the distance of the vehicle in front of you. At one point I had mentioned to Lee that the drive was getting real tough to see anything. A statement that he didn't much want to hear.
Much to our joy we made it out of the Grapevine and hit the flat land of the other side. Which strangely smelled funny. 60 miles or so beyond that point we found ourselves back in Buttonwillow Junction. It was right around 3am. We checked into the same Super 8 we were in before. We had a few beers and bitched about the ridiculous drive that just occurred then made our way to our respective rooms and passed out...
Coming up next... Oakland.
Adam
WCG
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