To Wyoming and Beyond - The Continuing Saga!
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After leaving Dina in  |
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Beautiful Wyoming - Daytime and Fiery Sunset (might be Utah?)
One of our Wyoming stops was at a really small town, Wamsutter. The bathroom at the gas station had a mural painted by an Oglalla Sioux (not bad) where a plaque stated that this painting and the one in the women's room were his only paintings and the store cashier verified it ("It's true!") as I purchased my jackalope keychain... |
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Pictures of James J. Ironhorse's Mural - Wamsutter, Wyoming.
Digital Video time as Louie took out video camera and had a grand time with Rebecca and I with various episodes of us interviewing each other. Someday I'll actually see the footage! Got to Evanston, Wyoming at the Utah border where Louie had an extensive video interview with a woman gas attendant regarding a price war with a competing gas station across the street, then into Utah at night, missed lovely scenery. Got some hail, bad weather in both states, Speed limit 75. We were cruising at 83-90 mph. Even Louie was driving fast by now. Met Charlotte Louie's friend the yoga teacher and stopped at her house in Salt Lake City, and now as we speak we are getting onto I-80 West after detour due to olympic construction, my first time writing this journal in the minivan on my new Powerbook. We decided to keep going instead of staying the night in Salt Lake City. In retrospect that was a good decision as a tornado hit downtown Salt Lake the following day. We're rockin' tonight. I hope to remember more when I get to California... Well we kept going, a real friggin' long time! We made it to Nevada, slot machine gambling land! Every little truck stop cafe and convenience store was a mini-casino with slots and invariably some sleazy person staring at the video screens and pouring money into the gambling machine of his choice. Gas was also expensive, up to $1.70 a gallon and expensive in California as well. Dawn in Nevada. We had breakfast in the Nevada desert at one of these places and I proceeded to drive the swing shift to dawn (again). At a dawn truckstop in Nevada, I saw this mini-RV, sort of a remade pickup truck with all sorts of bumper stickers all over it, mostly music based, including Bob Marley stickers, Dead stickers and all sorts of peace messages. I saw this woman get in and asked if we could take pictures of her van. She agreed. Her name was Barbara and said she travels around the country searching for reggae music and other jam bands like Phish. She was sweet and had a friendly dog she travels with. After we took pictures, Louie told me that she was HIV positive and she told Louie that "your friend" (meaning me) should use condoms to protect against sexually transmitted diseases. I guess it's because of my smouldering sexuality! |
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Barbara and Louie with her RV-trailer full of bumper stickers. Louie put Motives sticker to the upper left of the window... Two of the best ones - are "Jesus Saves - Moses Invests" and "Orgasm Donor."
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| As far as driving to the dawn, again I don't know how I do it but I was applauded for my "heroism" as Louie and Rebecca were both asleep. I had to shut down the monotonous reggae dub music emanating from our boom box. There was no radio, just silence as I barreled our heavy minivan down I-80 at 80-85 mph. When Louie was driving prior to my stint, he encountered fog so thick we couldn't see and exited the highway. We waited and it didn't dissipate. In the meantime we saw trucks muddle through it so we decided to as well. It was pretty thick but we could see the reflectors in the road; then it merely disappeared! Clear sailing again!
Louie again drove after me through other gambling towns, finally through Sparks, Reno and he made it to California. I then had to drive as Louie's driving showed real signs of fatigue. We got into Sacramento while Louie was making hotel and equipment storage arrangements on his cell phone. |
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San Francisco Bay - Finally! Well we finally made it over the Bay Bridge and San Francisco a little after noon on Wednesday. We found Rebecca's friend Emily's apartment in the Fillmore-Haight section and dropped her off. Burnt out Louie & I were in a search for burritos. We ended up in Haight-Ashbury and had a delicious burrito at a Mexican-run andoperated mex place, Taquerio El Balazo. We then found our way to Route 101 and headed toward San Jose. We passed the San Fran airport etc. pretty slow going. We finally got there and decided to try our San Jose home base, the Hyatt St. Claire (our official check-in was to be tomorrow) where we got a $99 room rate. Louie & I would share a room for 1 night and have the equipment in the room. We slowly loaded it off from a commercial alley way.It took time but we did it. We'll check out some clubs tonight and eat ribs or something. Whew! What a long trip but we made it! We checked out Club Ibex and Waves, the two showcase clubs for RAW and looked for late night eats. The only place was this Original Joe's hamburger joint which served $10 tossed salads and $9.00 burgers. Geez, gas prices are high here but this is ridiculous! We rejected that in favor of the hotel which was still serving and that was delicious. I had some pesto thang. |
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Back to Beginning of Trip | To Next Installment - San Jose and Sunnyvale Rehearsal |  |