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The hoofing around on Monday injured my aged, tender calves so we did our road trip to Santa Cruz on Tuesday. That way much of the day was spent driving. We went to the boardwalk at Santa Cruz. It was cleaner and friendlier then my trips to Coney Island had led to me expect. It’s a pretty extensive boardwalk! Two big roller coasters, a haunted mansion, huge beach, enormous arcade. At 5pm it became “1907 night” which meant they rolled back the prices on everything: hot dogs, sodas and all rides cost just 65 cents. Eliza declared that if she lived in that town, she’d go every Monday night. I do not believe her, but it was a fun trip.

Then we walked around the cartoonishly-populated Santa Cruz main street. Lots of young, dirty, dread-locked hippies. I bought CDs at a bookstore when one came to the counter asking for change. The cashier said “if this guy (me) is paying cash”. I wasn’t GOING to pay cash, but the hippie bullied me by saying “You WERE gonna pay in cash, right, brother?” I said “Yeah.” and he said “Right on!”

For the drive back, I blissfully listened to my new Woody Allen CD (an out of print stand-up CD, which had some stuff not on the in-print Rhino Records one) and a Bill Cosby CD Eliza bought. Old Cosby is amazing — sometimes brilliant, sometimes kinda goofy, but you really do laugh at almost everything! Impressive.

Wednesday we biked around Golden Gate park. There’s BUFFALO in that park! So random. I was trying to pick a more random animal to stumble upon: cobras? alpacas? That night we found a saloon in North Beach that had a band of 40ish plus blues muscians. They were as great as you’d want. They were all dressed way down except the bass player who had a tux shirt and velvet jacket. Perfect!

The weather picked up on Wednesday. Sunday and Monday were like chilly autumn days. But SF has remembered that it is summer since then.

Thursday we went to Berkeley and drank amazing coffee. I got disproportionately offended when the white teenage punks begged for change, but I didn’t say anything. It’s not cute; it’s kinda gross. I know REAL homeless people, kid! Where’s your mental illness! Get a job! Get off my lawn!

Today is Friday.

| Tags: eliza, san francisco