15. Overnighting at the Golden Gate Bridge and the Magic Bus.
Did you read the reviews? Oh you gotta read the reviews. Of course by the time you read this (especially if it goes too far into the future) the reviews can, and will change. But here's the gyst...
"The place is great! Can't believe they allow this! We did two nights and were able to see SFO things! Security keeps a close eye! Just for small RVs like less than 30'! No Trailers, no Toads! Noisy with Tourists! Don't park in the Tour Bus spots - you'll end up taking a drink!"
You get the picture.
Now I had imagined - you know I had. For weeks! You don't plan a route like this without checking ahead on at least SOME places, and when I had read reviews way back then, here was my image.
Yes, you have to drive busy streets in SFO. But, at some point, probably near the Bay, you take an exit that says "Only for people who love peace and quiet - Vista Point - next right". You take it, and it winds down and around away from the city and you get into the trees and along the Bay, gentle waves lapping at the shore, happy locals fishing from the banks in their cut-off jeans, floods - to keep from wetting the cuffs as you wade out to that little sand-bar that only the locals know about - what's such a good fishing spot! Small Yogi-Bear types of classic campers park here and there with dinette window views of the Golden Gate Bridge above you, some camp-sites actually shaded by the steel beams of the bridge... You get the picture.
But alas, imagination isn't always right, and reality has a way of smacking you in the face!
We pulled into a parking spot where we could see the bridge from the truck cab - and began our overnight planning. We were after a dinette window view of the bridge. Hey! That's what the time-share brochure had promised!
We also had to consider the head-boards of the beds (yeah I know - beds plural is new info - we'll get to that in the last post coming up in a few days) because when you get past a certain age - like 4 or 5 I think - your sleep begins to suffer if you let your head lie lower than your feet. Something about blood and dreaming. So there was the leveling, and the truck slightly higher in the rear, to think about.
Then there is the parking lot pavement slope, for silly things like rain water draining off and stuff. I don't know why that was such a big deal here - does it rain in SFO? - but apparently it was 'cause we were already sitting sloped in the truck cab.
And DW had her heart set on that view, you know? She's the one who pushed for it at every spot, and I got to come along for the results - which was ever so nice - at each time-share we've been to!
So I said, "wait here" and I stepped out into the rain. Then I wandered over here, and over to there, and back here to this other place, and such. I had planned to back into an left-right level spot, and roll in or out slightly to lower that rear end, but that wouldn't have provided the window view.
Now you know me - making DW happy is my life goal, because more often than not, doing that makes life REALLY good for me! Those benefits of compatible companionship are hard to define, but they're real, ask anybody who does it that way.
In the end, we stayed right where we were and I set out our little two step levelers to bring that right side up; two steps in front and one in back.
And with that - our Golden Gate Bridge Time-Share window view!
And there was great rejoicing.
I could even see it from the cab-over bunk, when I was up there trying to dry things out.
That's a little hard to see, here's a better view.
We played cards and watched people come and go - for hours! A car would flash in, parallel park, a passenger would jump out and point a phone, snap a picture of the bridge, jump back into the car - all in one smooth motion - and the car would be gone. And the rain came pouring down.
This was on the night of April 6th through the morning of the 7th. I guess it was the same rain-storm that brought this Yosemite flooding video recorded on the 7th.
Yosemite Floods the same day.Our little radiant Wave 3 heater warming our tootsies, and the windows cracked a bit so we could just look through rain drops and not window fog too. It was kind of wet!
There were about four other Class B and B+ type units, one small rental Class C - and us. Plenty of parking - we stayed away from the tour-bus parking lanes - didn't want to take a drink first thing in the morning.
And eventually we slept, the noise of cars coming and going, and people's happy voices "Oh Look!" they'd scream in various languages, far into our bed-time hour, but these were well within the psyche's expectations.
Then long about midnight, or one - maybe two, a semi-truck pulls in and parks by our heads - loud diesel engine rattling right there, and then this music started up!
Now you know that stuff that has a name I can't remember, but it is like really deep bass booms, and catchy? Kinda makes you wanna move? Ethereal, ancient, goes way back into the evolutionary period like with the Mamut in those Earth Children series? With Ayla and Jondular? Where everybody gets naked and dances? That stuff. But with a modern twist?
Because there's more instruments than just the booming bass, but you can't define what those are. And it was one of those songs like that old party song when I was a kid, where you hear this guy yell into the mike, "You all ready for this?" and then it's that electro-punk stuff that kinda makes you wanna move? Again?
That was the sort of song this truck driver played, out his window! By our heads! At about midnight, or one or two. My psyche wasn't expecting that, neither was DW's. The song was pretty cool though, because it just happened to be about the Golden Gate Bridge!
It started out with this male voice (very talented sounding voice, like a DJ) "Yo! Something, something, something, the Golden Gate Bridge, Yo!" and then all the party sounds are edited in, hundreds of voices and happy chatter as part-goers and revelers begin enjoying the DJ and the music and what he's providing for their disco-floor experience! And I'm like, 'what the hell?'
Well as it turned out it wasn't a semi-truck, it was a school-bus. And it wasn't a music-track of voices, it was just instrumental, combined with REAL PEOPLE. And a REAL DJ and a REAL GROUP of what DW said was 20 people out there as she pressed her face to the window. And they partied! And there was great rejoicing - again.
Now when you're awakened from a deep sleep, to an unusual situation, your mind plays tricks on you! Know what I mean? You don't go, "oh it's just a different kind of people, it won't last forever, it's part of the experience, etc. etc. etc."
Instead you start castigating yourself for going into such dangerous places on your classic camper's first outing, fearing all those hours and four years of loving restoration, are now going to get "keyed" and kicked, and maybe truck lights knocked out, and criminals coming through the door putting everyone in a dangerous situation and difficult decisions and police involvement and the whole thing!
You start imagining party goers, like this - who actually base out of SFO, and have look-outs and everything so they can radio to the bus-driver that "security just completed, we have 30 minutes" like in those bank heist movies?
And you listen intently, and in horror, for the chain-saws to start up. That's what the sleepy mind does.
But DW was wide awake, and she just sat there, arms folded, and for hours muttered, "that is SO rude". We've been run out before, and it's no fun. Why that time at the Las Vegas, New Mexico Walmart when the high-school football team partied where the RVs park.... and then the drug dealers followed up them?
I just layed there and accepted our fate, God was punishing us for trying to save money. I KNEW he was a Capitalist!
And then it happened. That DJ got back on the microphone, "Yo this bus leaves in 12 minutes" and "something, something, something", and we had our time line. Then I could sleep. In just a few minutes they were gone, and it was back to that dog-day afternoon under the bridge, local fishers wetting a line, sun shaded by the bridge beams, and we drifted back into peaceful slumber.
