Afterwards, we all went back to Louie's place, which was in the heart of San Fran. Outside of being hysterical, they are also great musicians. Louie had a guitar, banjo, and mandolin at home. I played mandolin while Louie and his brother played guitar and banjo - just improving and coming up with new songs. While we did this, Thomas (who I belive actually is in a band), ad-libbed lyrics to our songs - and not only did he sound incredible, but also sounded like he'd been singing these songs his whole life.
Afterwards we all went out for sushi. I'm not a gigantic fan of sushi, but this was pretty good. We had some sake, beer, food, and went back to Louie's yet again, and played more music yet again. Afterwards they all decided to hit a party about an hour away. It was already 11:30 and I still had to get to my campsite in Oakland - about an hour drive, so I declined to continue with them. I even mentioned to Morgan at one point during the night how surreal this all was. Here I am in the heart of San Fransisco, playing mandolin with some great musicians, eating at a little sushi dive in the heart of San Fran, with people I didn't even know a week ago. Life can be really cool like that sometimes.
I arrived to my campsite actually at about 1:30AM, only to find that the main gate: was closed. So I parked, put my sleeping pad ontop of all my food, clothes, firewood, etc in the back, and went to sleep.
Sunday in Oakland I wanted to look for a sports bar to watch some NFL. If you're not aware, Oakland is notorious for the legion of Raiders fans there. These are supposed to be some of the most diehard fans in football, and I was interested to see them in action. I drove around Oakland for about an hour and found nothing. Literally, not 1 sports bar. Eventually I found an english-type pub and went in there.
"Are you guys showing any NFL today?"
"No.. Just rugby, sorry."
"Huh. You know of any places in this town showing any NFL games?"
"Uhhhhh... hmmmm... Man, I dunno... Maybe, you could try Wally's? A few blocks down, they may be showing some."
So I went to Wallys; they had 1 small tv in the corner showing a Jets game, and they had 2 customers in there. Ok, so obviously I'm not looking in the right places.. Let's do a search on Yahoo for "Oakland sports bars". Results: 1. ONE! There's only one sports bar advertised online in Oakland? What in the world is going on here? I eventually literally just gave up after about 2 hours of driving around and went back to my campsite. That was one of the odder thing I've ever experienced.
 A father/daughter living it up at the festival |  Anthony Chabot redwood forest |
 Redwoods |  Next to my tent |
 Home is where the house is |
4 comments:
All of the Oakland fans are Los Angelians.
Seriously?
Yeah, Okland used to like them and supported them back in the day, but for the most part their fan base has always been the LA area. In my opinion, the Niners and the Raiders at this time have their stadiums way too close to each other and in that area the niners are better liked. The Raiders had to go to LA because in the 80's Joe Montana and the niners were beginning to win all the games and a few championships along their way which in turn gained them more support in near the Bay Area. I'm not surprised you did not find any good drinking places in Oakland, really...most people drink with friend at parks and close to home.
Wow.. That really is an interesting phenomenon to me. Thanks for the input - had absolutely no idea!
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