Days 17, 18, and 19: San Francisco

After driving nearly 14 hours to San Francisco—with a 2 hour stop in Las Vegas for a buffet lunch and some $5 black jack—we arrived around 10pm and spent our first night in the Golden State in a Motel 6 in Vallejo, about 40 minutes north of downtown San Fran.  We had big plans for the next day and were exhausted from the long drive, so we passed out early.

We woke up with a full day ahead of us, so we decided we should start the day with a proper meal.  Quickly finding an In N Out Burger we stopped in to try the west coast favorite, and it certainly did not disappoint.  Now ready for the day, we drove to Oakland Coliseum where we were met Joe’s college friend and fellow Chi Psi Mike Althoff before the three of us bought tickets from some scalpers and headed into the Raiders game.  The raiders put up a good fight against the Houston Texans, but in the end they were defeated.  We had an excellent time anyway, however, and it was good to see Mike again.  

We left the Raiders game, said our goodbyes and headed straight for Golden Gate State Park where we wanted to catch the end of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, which is a free annual music festival in San Fran.  After hunting for parking and wandering through the park for about 40 minutes with no luck finding the music, we finally got directions from a friendly San Franciscan and found ourselves in the middle of 6 stages and 60,000 people with about 2 hours of concert time left.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

At the third stage we found Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, who had a very bluesy, almost Janis Joplin like sound.  Although we were planning on wandering around between stages, we hung out at this stage for practically the whole time and enjoyed Sharon Jones. 

After another adventure through the park in an attempt to find the car we finally made our way to our lodging for the evening, a not-so-cheap Motel6 room in the heart of San Fran’s Tenderloin neighborhood. The next morning we woke up early to explore the city.   

View from Buena Vista Park in Upper Haight

We stopped at Ike’s Place, a well known sandwich shop that Corey had heard about on the food network, and had some pretty delicious sandwiches.  We then walked up Haight St. into the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood to explore the center of the hippie universe, which was home to the Grateful Dead and the aforementioned Ms. Joplin.  Although it is now pretty touristy, the Haight was a very cool area, with lots of old painted Victorians up and down steep hills. We also got a chance to walk through Buena Vista Park, from which we got a great view of the city and the Golden Gate bridge. 

Where Jerry and Janis hung out

From here we caught a Muni bus down to Fisherman’s Wharf, where we explored for a few minutes before stopping into Lou’s Restaurant for some seafood and live blues.  We had a good meal and heard some good music, then headed back to our new lodgings for the night: a youth hostel just a few blocks away from the previous night’s Motel 6.  We changed our clothes and went out to see what kind of nightlife the Tenderloin has to offer.  Turns out, on a Monday night the Tenderloin nightlife has very little to offer.  The highlight of our short, dart-filled evening was when we met a bartender who’d lived for a few years in Chapel Hill, NC, so he gave Joe a beer on the house.  After this brief exploration of the Tenderloin, we called it a night and crashed at the hostel in our luxurious 4 person room.

Although we’d like to stay in San Francisco for one more night, the hostel is fresh out of bed space, so we’re driving north up the coast to the Redwood National Forest.