“let’s just play it by ear” - road trip #1, Sacramento, California
Over the last year, Sacramento has become a second home for my friend Cathy and myself. We have friends all over the place up there and go up there as often as we can. Our friend Blake’s (he used to be in the band Self Against City, they broke up in June of 2008) band Musical Charis was playing a show in downtown Sacramento. It had been months since I had seen Blake and even longer since Cathy had seen him so of course we had to go. We figured we’d make our trip up to the show an all day thing; we’d spend the day up there and see all our friends that we haven’t seen in a while. Both of us made plans to see different friends so that we could make the best use of our time. I was going to see my friend Peter (who is in the band Push Push Pull) because he was having a rough time and just needed to have some human contact. Cathy was going to see her friend Jeremy that she hasn’t seen since her Spring Break. We thought we had everything planned out and everything was going to go swimmingly. Unfortunately, Peter’s phone hasn’t been online for days and his phone is off, so I was not able to get a hold of him causing that plan to fall through the night before (this will be a common theme throughout the day). Because I had no one to hang out with while Cathy was going to hang out with Jeremy I had to think of someone and decided to call up my friend Christina to see what she was up to. She was down to hang out, but nothing was ever confirmed, leaving Cathy’s plans with Jeremy unconfirmed. We decided that we were just going to “play it by ear.” I knew that Christina had to work from 3-6 and that the only time that Jeremy as able to hang out with Cathy was from 1-5. We decided to get to Sacramento around 1, leaving some adequate hang out time. We went to sleep with the idea that we were going to “play it by ear” - all day.
The next day we were running about 30 minutes behind, but we made it out the door eventually. With the way our luck was going it was no surprise that it was raining but the rain couldn’t stop our love for Sacramento and our need to see our friends. To begin the day we stopped at a local bagel shop and ran into some people we went to school with, awkward would be the best way to describe that rendezvous. After the first of many awkward moments throughout the day we were on our way to Sacramento. We hit more rain and traffic because there was on overturn semi… on the other side of the road. We didn’t take these signs from god that we needed to turn back to heart so we just keep plowing through. When we reached Davis and thought it would be a good idea to contact the people that we were going to be visiting. Christina was running late for work, leaving her not able to hang out consequently, leaving me without a buddy. While we thought of whom I could visit we made it to successfully to Sacramento. Christina’s boyfriend, Mike (who is in a band called K, Sera) works at a bowling alley in Rocklin. We figured that a bowling alley wouldn’t be that busy and I would go surprise him and hang out with him at work (hoping he would get off soon) so I got the address and off to “Strikes” and we went to surprise Mike. Cathy told Jeremy “you are meeting me at a bowling alley, don’t ask questions.” We made it to the bowling alley, realizing that it was the nicest bowling alley in the world. Seriously a 5-star bowling alley, so obviously, Mike was incredibly busy and didn’t have time to visit and/or hang out. He got off at 5 and told us to come back then so we could hang out. Cathy really wanted to spend some alone time with Jeremy so I decided I could go to the mall so that they could have their alone time and that we would meet back at Strikes at around 5 to catch up with Mike. Jeremy made it to Strikes and we went our separate ways. I went shopping for a belt, found a belt, and also bought a CD. After about an hour I get a phone call from Cathy asking where I was. It was a little surprising seeing as we were supposed to meet back up at Strikes. She gets dropped back off at the mall, we find each other and Cathy exclaims “I hate today.” apparently, when Cathy and Jeremy were hanging out, Jeremy’s sister texted him telling him that her car had broken down and she needed help, so their time got cut off. I got some food to eat since Cathy had gone to In-N-Out with Jeremy and during this time we called someone known as Beardy to see if instead of seeing him before the show, we could meet up with him after the show. However, he was being his usual difficult self and that ended up not happening. I guess we didn’t knock on wood soon enough. We left the mall to head back to Strikes to see Mike. Of course on the way back we hit every single stoplight and got to Strikes around 5:15 and Mike was long gone. Big surprise. Now, we had nothing to do, in Rocklin, for just under 3 hours until the show started. Feeling down on our lucky I bought some Camel Crushes and Cathy bought a 1-dollar lottery ticket…. and we won… 6 DOLLARS. Obviously, our luck was about to turn around. We went to Target and Cathy bought School Of Rock with her winnings and I got a Starbucks. Enough time had passed and we decided to head back to downtown Sacramento. We got there earlier than we wanted to and had to go to the bathroom, so Cathy being the determined person that she is didn’t want to use the bathroom inside Luna’s. So, we walked around downtown Sacramento for about 20 minutes looking for a bathroom. We finally found a Longs and had one of the worst bathroom experiences ever. Clogged toilets, no toilet paper, and just a dirty bathroom. It was okay though, because we were feeling better about things. We walked back to my car to get the Camel Crushes then headed back to Luna’s. We made, we were finally at the show. We walked in and saw Blake and found out the following information: almost every single person left the band because they all thought that Musical Charis was a cult and Jon (the singer of Self Against City) moved to Arizona with his girlfriend Alex. Blake told us that he loved us. Then he decided that his friend Brad was perfect for me and that we are a match made in heaven. He introduced me to Brad and nothing really happened. Musical Charis played and it was pretty good. A little odd because they didn’t have a full band but it was still good. We hung out a little more with Blake. This time Blake told Cathy that his brother Brad is perfect for her; I guess Blake felt like playing matchmaker last night. We watched the last band Miss Lonely Hearts, which was really good. After the show was over and we said our goodbyes to Blake and he told us he loved us, again (it was about the 23rd time of the night) he also told Cathy that in another life they could be secret lovers. We left, and I never got Brad’s number. Sorry Blake!
We headed home and stopped at a Taco Bell. The drive home was uneventful for the most part, except that about 15 minutes from home I REALLY had to pee. It was almost to the point where I was going to piss myself. I drove fast and made Cathy tell me stories to keep my mind off the fact that I needed to urinate. We got to Cathy’s house and I relieved myself. We chatted with her parents for a bit, I headed home, and my first road trip of 2009 was over. This trip started out terribly and ended on a very good note. I was reminded of how much I absolutely love Blake and how much I don’t care if everyone hates that crazy kid. I learned that it is possible for all your plans to fall through but to remember “in like a lion, out like a sheep”
If this is any hint at how my road trips are going to be this year, than I am going to have a lot to type for you all. Road trip #1, you were quite the eventful one.
