For the overnight drive, I grab one of the overhead bunks which double as the baggage holds, my first night on the bus where I don’t have to sleep next to anybody. I awake dozily in the middle of the night as some people get dropped off in LA, but am too tired to rise myself for a wave of goodbyes.
When I finally arise, the passenger list has dissolved to ten and I feel tension easing from me. I am perhaps mildly claustrophobic, but I am glad I don’t have to sleep on this bus crammed with 35 people anymore. I even start talking cordially with Cristina.
The bus stops at a Denny’s for breakfast, a table service fast food chain restaurant like a Wimpy’s in the UK. I don’t remember eating at a Denny’s when I was a boy in Florida, though the prices can’t have changed much in twenty five years. A pancake and an egg costs $2, though I opt for a manwich of sausage, bacon, eggs, cheese, etc. There will be no need for lunch.
The table next to us have two waitresses assigned to them, one being in training. In the UK, you would have to be in a very much more expensive restaurant to expect the servers to be formally trained, but I guess the fixed smiles and perky ‘have a nice day’s take some practice.
Charlie is driving again, and we get off the Interstate at an earlier exit than Jimmy’s normal route onto the 101 to SF. Jimmy is in the driver’s cabin at the back of the bus, but Charlie predicts that he won’t be there long. Within seconds Jimmy comes stumbling down the bus to ask Charlie where he is going. After a few minutes of niggling Charlie about getting off at the wrong exit, we pass a sign to SF that makes Jimmy realise that he has cut about an hour off the journey.
Jimmy then takes over the driving as we approach SF. It is only then that he recalls that it is gay pride weekend, and the parade will be blocking off the central Market Street. Rick offers him some directions to avoid the blockage but after we have been in traffic for about ten minutes, which Jimmy says is half an hour, Jimmy decides it will take two hours for him to drive to Green Tortoise hostel, although it is only a mile or two away. He wants to drop us off to walk the rest of the way, but with everyone laden with luggage, nobody is very keen. Eventually Jimmy refuses to go any further, leaving the remaining passengers somewhat disgruntled. It also means that the leftover booze in the bus that I was planning to bring back for group consumption will have to be left behind, but Charlie promises to bring it to us when we meet up with him in the evening.
By the time we get to Market Street, the parade had passed and the road was on the verge of being re-opened, which leaves some people wondering if they can take back their driver’s tip.
I crash out for the afternoon in my dorm bed at the hostel, which is in the window bay overlooking Broadway. The San Franciscan Broadway is somewhat different to the New York one, with the most prominently lighted attractions being The Garden of Eden and Larry Flint’s Hustler Club and other such ‘gentlemanly’ delights.
There are a few of the people from the tour staying at the hostel with me and we meet up with Charlie and Rick for a Chinese dinner in the evening. Charlie tells me that as soon as they got the bus back to the compound, Jimmy disappeared as did the bag of booze.
By now I am looking forward to being a sole traveller again. Quite a lot of the people on the GT tour will have come away from it feeling that they have made a lot of good friends. Having been on a trip with a similar sized group for thirty-two weeks, I feel a little distanced from this as, in comparison to my UK to Oz colleagues, I know very little about the GT group, though there are a number of them I would like to keep in touch with.
After an over-sized, over-sauced and over flavoured meal, we say goodbye to Charlie, as he walks backwards across the road in his socks, having removed his boots because of aching feet.
The remaining party are going onto one of SF’s famed gay bars led by Rick, but I am too tired and pass a couple of hours in the hostel common room (‘The Ballroom’) while drinking Magner’s bought from the liquor store down the road and listening to drunk musicians destroy many standards, and few sub-standards too. It was almost bad enough for me to think about offering to play myself.
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| Back in SF |
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