Nor Cal

The adventures in San Francisco didn't end at the Pet Cemetery, thankfully. Actually, thinking about it, if they had, it would've made quite a nice horror B-Movie, but that's a different story altogether.

I hung out with Roxanne a little bit more around the city, taking some cool little trips around a bunch of places. One of those cool places was Corona Heights, a hill looking down over the city. The sun began to set as we were up there, leaving the sky resembling what Roxanne called a "Golden Soup". I'd never heard the sky compared to soup before, but hey, it worked!

Soon enough, we'd decided it would be fun to take a wee trip up to Roxanne's home town of Stockton, then on up towards Lake Tahoe, where she needed to pick up her car. We jumped on the Amtrak, spent a night in Stockton, then met up with Roxanne's friend Katie. The drive up to Tahoe was pretty immense, some real big mountains and cool desolate scenery, and especially cool colours in the vegetation, as Autumn was just beginning to set in.

We spent one night up in Katie's family's cabin out in the woods. I think the girls had maybe expected a little excitement after buying me a bottle of beer called "Kiltlifter" in a supermarket on the way up! Sadly though, despite its 7.5% potency, we were all a bit too tired for any kilt-based antics and just hit the hay. The next morning was spent helping Katie's dad ready the cabin for winter. This involved not only locking away anything that wasn't bolted down (because of bears and very heavy snowfalls) but also dismantling an old stove that needed to be taken down to civilisation to be repaired and refurbished.

Heading back, Roxanne and I decided a trip around the shores of Lake Tahoe would be in order. Heading down the road from the cabin to the main town of South Lake Tahoe, we met Nikolai and Eve, a Bulgarian couple who had lived in France and were now living in San Jose. They'd pulled over at a little layby to take a picture down the impressive valley, and had managed to get themselves locked out of their car, with the keys inside. After many attempts to call their insurance company to arrange assistance, eventually a Highway Patrol officer passed by and was able to help them out, so Roxanne and I got on the road. Our trip around the lake was a bit of a non-event due to some Rotten Weather, but I did at least get to say I'd been in Nevada!

Next stop was back down to Stockton again where I stayed at Roxanne's for a few days. Stockton is the home of alt-rock legends Pavement, and nearby Modesto was where Grandaddy (one of my favourite bands!) hailed from, and being around there, I could kinda see where their sounds came from. I got to hang out at the excellent, but now-defunct Stockton Cycles, meet some gangstas, and try skateboarding and fixed-wheel cycling for the first time in Stockton, which was all kinda fun!

While Stockton was fun, I needed to head back into San Francisco where I'd catch my train to LA. My second visit to SF was considerably quieter, but just as fun, hanging out with Roxanne and more of her friends and just enjoying the excellent California sunshine.