I’m getting used to driving the winding mountain passes that connect my westbound destinations from city to cliff bluff and then to ancient forests and back again to small towns. The nomad runs deep within me, tickling the soles of my bare feet, pressing me ever onward. But I could go west no further else I drive my van into the Pacific. South then, to San Francisco. I would save the coastal highway drive for the Los Angeles leg of the trip. Take the quicker inland route for I so desperately want to reach the city. NorCal, at last.

Miles on more miles, burning tire tread across the nation. Just scratching the surface of discovery and awakening. This is the here and the now and I want it all, every last drop.

And then suddenly I’m on the Golden Gate Bridge headed into the city during rush hour. I couldn’t say why, but I am weeping softly as I enter the city. I don’t believe the 5 o’clock traffic is causing the waterworks; it’s just…so beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky or fog to block the city-scape and my eyes drink in the colors like eager tree roots in a storm after the drought. My two man tent had gotten me this far, but this is Frisco. High time to find a hostel.

I have never stayed in a hostel before, so frankly I don’t know what to expect. But I’d seen Hostel,the movies number one and two… and being taken and sold into European human trafficking is not on my to do list. No sir-eee.

Drive around a bit, enough to scope out the city, then beast-mode and white knuckle the van up some of those gnarly hills that only trolleys should reasonably be allowed on. Arrive at the Adelaide. My hostel is tucked into the heart of downtown in an unmarked alleyway. Google Maps is my only hope and I still walk by it twice. Finally turn the corner and see a beautiful mural on the bricks, beckoning wary travelers. I take steps up the four concrete stairs and ring the bell.

All of my apprehensions melt away as I enter the bustling lobby and see a ragged reflection of my life these past few weeks. Road wizened children of travel with rucksacks and sleeping bags, dreads and wind-blown hair, kicking the dust of the earth off their shoes.

Hostels are like hotels for cool young people with no money. I book my room, secure the door code and room key and went to find overnight parking for Delilah. I’m going to go through this next part briefly else I throw my pen and keyboard out the window in remembrance of the red rage I experience parking the van.

It was supposed to be five dollars off with the hostel voucher I had. Nope. Oversized vehicles cost fifty dollars and they refused to even give me the five bucks off. I argued with the attendants who refuted me in broken Spanglish for about twenty minutes, before I begrudgingly hand over my credit card. Their signs are wrong and they are falsely advertising. Screw you State Garage in San Francisco, I’ll be writing a strongly worded letter to your supervisors. End rant.

Grab guitar, backpack and a few clothes. Get utterly lost walking back to the Adelaide even while tracking myself as a digital blue dot, phone in hand. Hot dang I need a drink. Finally stumble across the elusive alleyway, climb two flights of stairs, and dump my stuff on my bunk. I share a room with six other girls, most of whom seem from different countries all together. Six bunk style beds set into the walls with dark blue pull across curtains, a lamp light in each and clean sheets are a sight for sore eyes after weeks camping and crashing in the van. A sink and mirror adorn the plain set and otherwise empty room, aside from a coat rack with maybe six or seven of the many hangers filled. The bathroom and – hallelujah the shower were right outside the door. Running water we meet again. Hoorah!

So the downtown bar scene sucks. A grid of cocktail lounges mostly lacking theme and creativity and all running shuttles to the airport lined the unkempt streets. Not a craft beer bar in sight and man is my Midwest really showing. I might’ve landed in the wrong city after all. Unfortunately, no one bothered to tell me about the psychedelic mixing pot that is Haight-Ashbury, the quintessential hippie and art community, so I wandered around the more business and club oriented downtown. Maybe next time.

Finally I see signs marking Lefty O’Doul’s. Now that sounds like a place where a gal could get a pint. Cross the street, go in and grab a barstool. It’s packed. They’ve got the San Francisco baseball game on. In fact, every television has a ball game on. Shit this is a baseball bar. How was I supposed to know Lefty O’Doul was a ball player, I abhor baseball. Oh well, at least they have a good draft selection.

Couple of brews and a generous sum of Irish whiskey later and the piano guy has nearly got me in stitches. The old coot was givin’ her hell at his eighty-eight keys to an audience of cougars surrounding the slightly raised platform. The lot of out of towners sounded anywhere between the United Kingdom all the way to Scotland or maybe Ireland I can never tell those two apart. And boy were they eating this guy up. He had to be pushing seventy, yet his raunchy renditions of “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Sweet Caroline” are lined with bedroom banter directed at his willing audience. Well the cougars anyway. Many a time he would just add “under the sheets” to the end of any give verse, to a raucous chorus of giggling.

My eyes begin to grow heavy and the music feels further away, as if from a dream. Time to call her a night. Sweet dreams San Francisco, until the morrow. Wander back home, clamber into the top bunk, draw the curtain and fade into oblivion.

Sunshine can’t break the crease of my bed curtain, yet I hear rustling and bird song drifting lightly through the window. Lace up my Converse and hit the pavement. Destination: the Fisherman’s Wharf. I walk the mile or so to the bay with the wind whipping my hair around my face. It is only early October, but people are layered in thick coats and scarves to guard against the biting breeze. Amateurs. This is Northwood’s t-shirt weather.

The entrance of the wharf precedes a line of restaurants and piers and also houses the Maritime National Historical Park. The large ships rest permanently docked in the bay for people to gaze upon their sails, pulleys and wooden planking, smoothed and worn down from heavy boots and the willful tide of the sea. Old vessels which will never again set sail into the horizon.

I walk around a bit, and then plunk down on the sidewalk to play some morning musik for the foot traffic walking around the bay. “Save me San Francisco,” baby.

“Take me to my city by the bay…I’ve been up. I’ve been down. I’ve been so damn lost since you’re not around. I’ve been rock n’ roll and disco. Won’t you save me San Francisco?”

Post up, sing loud, sway in the bay breeze and breathe in the love. Diggin’ this scene so I pick up and continue down the wharf. Finally, find a place with a wall of draft beers. Bingo. Grab a brew and chat up the company to my left and to my right. Meet two gals traveling up the coast, the opposite route from mine. A redhead from Scotland and a blonde girl from Germany.

Trade war stories, shoot the breeze a bit. Another guy, a bit older, said this bar has looked the exact same for the last twenty years. Beer tapper handles adorning the ceiling by the dozens, and dark wood floors and walls lending to the tavern appeal.

Carry on, but my inner girly girl is finally, after weeks on the road in the wilderness, coming out to play and I do a little shopping. Tourist-ing it up, beer gardens on the bay and meet and greet with other travelers, living the dream. Most of the unfamiliar faces are just visitors like me. The locals all seem a bit…pretentious, I hate to say… or at least a bit unwilling to acknowledge the flurry of interactions unwinding around them. The city itself and industries catered to the many travelers but you could tell the newcomers from the true community, for the latter walk and talk with an air of urgency. As if  perpetually needing to be wherever it is they are going like, ten minutes ago.

I’m having a blast. I’ll leave my footprint and a bit of my essence in my melodies carried round the bay in the wind. Then I too will blow away south on the breeze.

That sushi life though. My God. I hit up the same sushi place twice in one day and feast like a queen. Nom nom nom. Yellowtail and green onion and salmon nigiri. Drown it all in soy sauce and wasabi that bites my taste buds back and deliver on delicate chopsticks. Delish.

Well now I’m high on Frisco, full and a bit buzzed. Staring out at the shimmering bay with an IPA, heart light and mind easy. Time to venture back, take a power nap and hit up that night life. There must be more to downtown than first glance.

Not going to lie, the uphill walk back to the Adelaide had me a bit winded. Even after all the hiking I’d been doing I’m still hopelessly out of shape. I blame the craft beer industry. I sit down on the sidewalk three quarters of the way up the steepest road I’ve ever been on. Warmth and contentment spread through me as I look down over the saltwater reflecting on the sun’s red rays and preceding the inevitable dusk.

“Wrap me up return to sender. Let’s forget this five year bender. Take me to my city by the bay. I’ve been up, I’ve been down, I’ve been so damn lost since you’re not around. I’ve been reggae and calypso. Won’t you save me San Francisco?”

But the view from down here on the pavement is clearer than eyesight and sooner than hindsight; learning to live right and lending to insight. A lump stirs beneath a worn, dirty blue sleeping bag on the other side of the sidewalk. One life living low, shutting out the wind and the world. They can see from down here too, and I see them from up and down and for a time, here and now, through their own drained and guarded eyes. I can only wonder what life they would’ve picked if given the chance. I crave their stories and hopes and disdain and perspective. Ever seeking perspective.

Me with my guitar, sitting cross legged, hair bedraggled and nearly four weeks in on the road. Feeling the weight of years lift from my shoulders, mistrusts and misdeeds, follies and grudges washed clean even as the dirt catches in my nail beds and permanently coats the soles of my feet. Yet heavy stares fall upon me and break me from my musings.

Cuz boy do I look homeless. Perception is a tricky mistress. Though I claim my humility and promote equality, my gaze has been cast as heavily and spliced with judgement time and time again. I must strive to rise above the human flaw. Or flaws rather. May I seek not to be understood as to understand and may I heed wise words, where I would rather see them refuted.

I’m deep in thought and the sun has begun to set in earnest now. Power-walk home with steady stride revived and my head held high. Turn into the alley and punch the five digit code into the front lock. Beep in and climb two flights of carpeted stairs. Nap time.

Recharge, reset and rest. Stir lightly under warm, dark blue sheets and clamber down the metal rungs of the ladder set into the wall. The five other girls hush suddenly and apologize for waking me up. Somehow I’ve gotten the Judy Blume lot. They are bed-bound and brushing their teeth, slipping into jammies. It’s 9:45. I say “no worries, I’m just headed out.” I silently apologize in my head for probably waking them up five hours from now when I come in at bar close. Oops. The rest of the hostel have the right idea though and are readying for a night out on the town.

So I head back down to Lefty O’Doul’s. Gotta start somewhere. I end up chatting with a couple of guys celebrating one of their thirtieth birthdays. Game on boys. I’m invited to tag along and we bar hop and Pokémon our way through downtown. Okay, fine…I was the only one shamelessly Pokémoning on every street corner.  But Pokemoning is better than prostituting. That should be a bumper sticker, or a proverb.  😉

I hadn’t been out like this on a Saturday night since Denver, and I was determined to remember more of the ride this time round.

We pass a pizza joint and our questioning looks towards each other silently come to a consensus and we veer in through the doorway. We cram into the little brick building, hot with the warmth of the overs. Start chomping down some classic pepperoni and then one by one, slowly turn to the big screen behind us.

“And I, will always love youuuuuuuu!” Comes out of through the speakers, Whitney Houston’s hair dominating the screen.

And that is all the birthday boy needs, starting in on the key change in an impressive falsetto. Before long it is the three of us, belting out notes, staring into the depths of each other’s eyes and giving our souls to the song. The pizza guy didn’t seem disturbed in the slightest, he only smiled. Twas’ only midnight and I’m sure we won’t be the strangest sight he sees yet tonight. We finish our ballad, split one more slice and away we go.

Club lights pulse in the night around us and dance musik drifts out the doorway, bass lightly vibrating tall glass windows set in black against an elegant doorframe. I walk right on by it, only to be yanked back towards the door by the elbow.

Me: “I’m not going into that club.”

Guy: “It’s my birthday.

Rats. Heavy sigh, glimpse down at my black and red checkered flannel, gray cargo cutoffs and Chuck Taylors. I step up to the bouncer and pray there’s a dress code and he can just put me out of my misery before I even get through the door. No such luck, as he waves me through. They order me a cocktail, vodka cranberry, which is a recipe for disaster in itself. Bottoms up.

Buzz begins to settle in my brain, pulses through my veins, in time with the musik. Boom, boom, boom. Ease up a bit and sway with the party jams. It’s not like I’ve never been in a club before, it’s just not my preference. As if on cue, A California nine and a half, brunette and dressed to the nines in a tight black cocktail dress and tall black heels, makes a beeline for where I’m leaning against the bar next to the guys.

“Oh, my, God. Is that yours??” She exclaims as she reaches out, takes my hair, mind you that hasn’t been washed in three days, and runs it through her fingers.

“Umm…my..?” I stutter and stare dumbfounded.

“Your hair! Is that really your hair?” She beams and stares me down.

“Uh yeah, it’s definitely mine.” I answer.

“Well it’s simply gorgeous! Just wanted to tell you that.” She says and turns on heel as quickly as she had come, back to her clique and grey goose martini.

I’m totally weirded out and just turning back to my drink when one of the guys chimes in.

“Dude, you just got ‘Mean Girled’.”

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“Mean Girled. You look prettier in flannel than that girl did in a two hundred dollar dress. So she had to compliment you to play out some kind of Regina George moment. Like, ‘omg that is so fetch!’”

I cough my drink up a little as understanding dawns and I laugh out loud. So that just happened. Weird.

Dance our way out the door and into the night, though I could feel it drawing to an end. Walk the guys back to their hotel (how reversely chivalrous of me) and head for home before the darkness gives way to the dawn.

I make my way back with the city lights still shining all around me, even while the service industry closes up shop and the real night walkers come out to play. No place for a simple vagabond like myself. Back to the cozy Adelaide and crawl quietly into bed, with maybe just one or two dull thumps and missteps against the smooth wall and metal rungs in the darkness. Fall into my bunk and am out the moment my head hits the pillow. Goodnight San Francisco.

Wake, rise, shine – rub the sleepies from my eyes and clamber down metal rungs set into the white wall. Hit the road again after I grab Delilah from the stupid parking garage. Freaking highway robbery, yet I digress.

Blow the bay a kiss and tires burnin’ tear it up southbound down Highway 1. The coastal drive and winding trek to the City of Angels, Sunset Boulevard, Universal studios and streets hot with the smell of piss and missed opportunity – but I won’t miss mine. See you soon L.A.