It started raining this morning, and with that summer was over. I knew it couldn’t last. It’s mid-way through September, and finally the good weather has gone. As I type, in a West Vancouver coffee shop, the sky is overcast, and the north shore mountains are barely visible for the clouds. It’s probably time to pack away the summer clothes, dust off the umbrella, and only wear shorts in an act of defiance against the impending months of downpours and gloom that will inevitably envelope Vancouver for the next few months.
I know it’s coming. We all know it’s coming. Rain would be miserable, but rain in the city means that soon it will be snowing in the mountains, and that means that the snowboard season will begin again in November.
But how was the rest of summer? Well, pretty interesting – similar to my previous three summers living in Canada really. I didn’t go on as many hikes as I’d like, but with immigration issues now a distant memory, I was finally able to make the most of living in North America, and explore a couple of new places on this continent.
Tissa’s tour with her band the Bleeding Horse Express gave me a good reason to travel, not that I’d really need one, so one day I woke up at 4am, got the bus down to Bellingham Airport just across the border, and flew to San Francisco.
I arrived in the city a few hours before Petra, another friend of Tissa and I whom I was sharing my trip with, and so decided to immerse myself in San Francisco. I started walking. My aim? To get as lost as possible.
And what a city to get lost in. It is utterly beautiful. Perched on a huge fault line on the Pacific Coast of California, San Francisco feels very much like a warmer version of Vancouver. But that’s not all it’s good for. The Victorian architecture is beautifully maintained across the board, and the views are spectacular. Camera in hand, I ambled along for hours. Venturing up Fillmore Street I marvelled at the lovingly restored buildings, funky boutiques, cool coffee shops, and welcoming bars – eventually finding myself in the Pacific Heights district, on Broadway. I was right at the top of the city. It was so high up, and looking out across San Francisco Bay, I could see the Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island State Park, and of course Alcatraz. An armada of leisure crafts moved across the water like ants on the pavement.
Eventually I found myself in a local bar, ordered a beer, and revelled in the cheapness of alcohol in the USA, compared to Vancouver, for an hour or so until Petra arrived. After she arrived we ordered a couple of delicious, and very well priced burgers, had more beer, and tracked down Slim’s – the music venue that Tissa’s show would be at the following night. Then we both passed out at a local hostel.
Tissa and the rest of the band had driven down from Portland, Oregon that day, and arrived very late that night. It had been a few days since they had made a fleeting visit to Vancouver, to play a show at Granville Street’s Venue on August 19, before leaving again to finish their tour with a stint down the west coast.
Petra and I met the band the following morning at their hotel. Rob, known as “Coach Frith” – band drummer Ben’s father, and band manager took everyone to a spectacularly good restaurant at one of the hotels in downtown San Francisco. The pulled pork sandwich hit heights previously unknown to me. And the miniature Ketchup bottles were rather cool too. I took one with me.
Our exploration of San Francisco continued, with Petra, Tissa and I taking a trip to Pier 39 at Fisherman’s Wharf, to do the tourist thing for a while. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to visit Alcatraz. That will be saved for another time.
We explored more streets of the city, and took in the extreme inclines of some of the roads – one thing San Francisco is world renowned for. How my buddy Luke managed to drive an R.V. up and down these streets a couple of years ago, on route to Costa Rica from Vancouver I will never know.
That night the show was spectacular. Slim’s is a fantastic venue, the local act – Sioux City Kid, were great fun, plus buying almost two litres of Jim Beam Whiskey from the local Costco for only $20 certainly made things more interesting. The music wasn’t bad either! The following morning we all piled into the Bleeding Horse Express “moustache ride” and drove a few hours to Los Angeles.
And what a place. Another city that I’d seen so much of on television and in movies, and so felt like I knew it already. It was great to visit finally. The hospitality Tissa, Petra and I received from Joanne and Aria – Tissa’s Aunt and Uncle, knew no bounds, making Los Angeles feel like a home from home (from home… I guess?). Unfortunately, our time in Los Angeles was limited. We visited Santa Monica Pier – another beautiful location, and spent a few hours hanging around at the El Rey Theatre, where Tissa’s Los Angeles show was held. Some Indian food, and coffee later, and we were primed for another Bleeding Horse Express experience. As always, they didn’t disappoint.
The following day was a whirlwind 24 hours. We woke early, and using the Jeep Wrangler we had been given for the duration of our stay by Tissa’s family, drove five hours across the desert to the city of sin, Las Vegas. As we left California’s pleasantly hot environment and got progressively more inland, the landscaped developed into sparse desert, and the temperature soured. At one gas station in Death Valley, I knelt down to take a photograph, and the skin on my knee peeled off. The ground was just that hot. We bought a huge bag of ice, and used the rapidly melting cubes to cool ourselves as we drove.
Tissa’s show in Vegas was logically – considering it was 43 degrees – an outdoor affair, on Fremont Street. It was typical of Las Vegas grandeur. Lights everywhere, hostels, casinos, a quad zip-line that ran directly over the stage, and thousands of sweaty people everywhere. How the band performed the way they did I’ll never know, but once the sun set, the temperature dropped to a slightly more manageable 30-something.
At 2 o’clock in the morning, Petra and I got back to the car. We both had flights back to Vancouver from LAX the following day. We left Tissa at a party at The Luxor, a typically ostentatious venue shaped like a huge black pyramid, with a beam of light aimed directly into the sky. The band were leaving the following day, to play another show at Disneyworld, before a final show in San Diego. We drove through the night, and after much coffee, and being repeatedly punched in the head by Petra later, we managed to return, barely conscious, to Los Angeles. It was 7am. My flight was at 11:30, and I was exhausted. The last thing I remember was the plane taxiing down the LAX tarmac, and the next was the flight attendant announcing our descent back into Vancouver. What a lightning week. Ridiculously busy, but a fantastic experience.
