I set out from Harris Ranch early that day. Actually, I got up early that day, ate some breakfast bars I'd packed with a cup of coffee, and then checked out- only to find that my car battery had died. I spent some time looking sketchy in the parking lot before heading in and asking if the hotel had any jumper cables, which they informed me they did.
An hour later they found them.
I ended up driving a mile or so to a gas station that had an auto repair place with a sign proclaiming it was the last such establishment for 100 miles. Not wanting to be stranded in the middle of California Cow Country with a dead battery, I parked at the gas station, my car died, and I pushed it up to the repair place.
It seemed like a good omen that the shop was called "Kevin's Repairs," and when I inquired they did have the battery I needed, though it was outrageously overpriced. I even tried to comment on the mechanic and my shared name, to build up some sense of camaraderie, but he didn't even fall for "Kevin means handsome in Gaelic." I moved on after the repairs, having lost about 3 hours from my planned trip time. The nice thing about the whole battery crisis is that my CD player in my car, which hasn't worked for months, mysteriously repaired itself. No more middle of nowhere christian radio for me! It was back to Dark Funeral, the only album I had in the car, as it had been so evil it broke my CD player.
The next stop on the trip was Berkeley. I have a friend there who didn't know I was coming, and I didn't have her phone number, but I did know the store she worked at. I had wanted to stop in a couple of the Bay Area cities since it had been years since I lived in the area, and this seemed like a perfectly good excuse. I should have planned better.
Not only is Berkeley pretty difficult to navigate if your driving through without a map or anything, when I got to the bookstore she worked at she wasn't in. To make matters worse, I had to convince the employees there that I wasn't some sort of street person so they'd let me use the bathroom. I wandered Berkeley on foot until I saw a college student practicing banjo at a bus stop. That was enough Berkeley for me.
At this point it was getting pretty late in the Afternoon, and I had planned to go into San Francisco and maybe hit Colma by day two, but was quickly realizing this was not going to happen. I had spent the money I'd planned for a couple of nights hotels on the bizarre experience at Harris' ranch, so I had to figure out where to stay, and the streets of Berkeley didn't seem to have much to offer. I called the only other person I knew in the Bay Area- my grandmother.
I know, riveting. Truth be told, my grandmother Pat is probably one of my cooler relatives. She was married to my hard-assed 7 foot tall marine cop grandfather, Wayne- this alone get's you a gold star in my book. As a kid, she introduced me to Godzilla and museums and all the sorts of stuff I take for granted as a part of my personality now. I read the Lord of the Rings at her house one summer as a child, and so of my interests seems tied to her El Cerrito home. She was happy to have me come and stay; crazy happy. I guess that's what relatives are for. Her home is packed full of Egyptian and Japanese art, African sculpture, Persian rugs and old dying pets. It has stayed practically the same since I was a kid, with the excepetion of what remained of my great-grandparents estate being crammed into one of the rooms.
We had chinese food at a great place called Uncle Wong's near her house in El Cerrito and she took me up to a hill that overlooked the entire bay. It was a powerful image- the cold air whipping from the pacific west of us over the city and into the foothills of the east bay area. I stood alone there for several minutes watching the sea and appreciating the muted silence.
Her boyfriend Doug gave me a ton of old AAA maps of California, and we talked for some time about local Phoenix culture and my new, deeper involvement in theater and the arts. I presented them with the metaphor for Phoenix that I'm most fond of: Creatively, it is a sort of Wild West town, where everyone is living in these little clans, but you can wander up to the fastest gunslinger and take aim and work right alongside them. There's an openness in Phoenix to new creative minds and talents that I am hard-pressed to find in people from California.
I slept in the guest room like a baby. It was something of a relief- We'd visit when I was a kid, and I always slept in the room that had been my Uncle Mike's, who had died in a motorcycle accident after a troubled and brief life. Sleeping in that room has always made me feel weird- surrounded by memories of a person I'd never known who meant so much to my mother, aunts, and grandparents. Haunted.
The next morning my grandmother filled up a huge thermos of coffee and packed me a bunch of walnuts and berries for the trip into San Francisco. Neither she nor Doug really understood why I was visiting what was essentially a homeless person's grave, but encouraged me to do so, and then slow down and take a different path back home. It was exactly what I needed: maps and advice. I gathered my crap and got into the car to head into San Francisco.
CHECK AGAIN TOMORROW FOR PART 3
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