March 12, 1995 (Westbound and up Pt 2: The arrival)

Let's get one thing out of the way, since I'm partial and opinionated: Southern California sucks, alright?
Now that we have this one technicality tagged, logged, and booted out of the way, let's continue with the arrival into the bay area (aka silicon valley)....
After travelling up the state for 2 days, we met the 3rd with what started out as a slight handicap...rain. What began as a slight handicap (outside the bay area) slowly got worse as Jack and I continued toward San Jose.
We knew we had to get a hotel for one more night because Bekins (moving company) had not arrived with our belongings. Realize that we took several detours, listed here for your convenience (http://www.ramblingfreak.com/2011/03/march-2-1995-westbound-and-up-part-1.html), but they still hadn't arrived anywhere near on time. I will get to that, don't worry your head.
Cutting a long-winded story a little shorter: We even decided to try going out to Castroville (Home of the Artichoke festival, which was rained out that year and so were most of the crops), turned around and went back on our journey.
Travelled through Gilroy, home of most garlic which you get at your grocery store (look on the produce boxes and/or the jars of minced stuff....chances are, it came from Gilroy), and home of the garlic festival....and we're talking everything from garlic wine to chocolate covered garlic (yes, I went there...the chocolate has better uses).
Eventually, we approached the connection to Interstate 280 and it was major pouring rain before we got there. Continued on until 280 became 680 (changes numbers inside the city limits) and let me tell you....I was all but directly behind Jack's car and could barely see it. The rain was coming down THAT hard. So, I tried to back off from the car and see if I could do better that way, and to no avail.
Out there, at least at the time, there were no stripes in the road which divided the lanes. There were only the light reflective 'bumps' which helped someone stay in their lane, should they become tired. Those were also useless because not only had the sun bleached out the reflective device inside the 'bumps', but the rain was so hard that they couldn't be seen at all...only felt and that was after the fact.
So, we're on a 6 lane interstate (each direction) of traffic that would normally have been going at least 65 mph (more like 80, but....), and we were all doing 30 mph at the most. Still, you could tell the way all cars were slightly jerking around that everyone was spooked out. I was certainly one of them.
About an hour later, we finally arrived at our hotel of choice in Santa Clara. We get to our room and nap for a good while....such a good while that when we woke up, it was already dark and we were hungry...and it was still pouring rain.
We drove to the nearest fast food place, Carls Jr (which is the same as Hardee's, on the east coast, but with a better menu), and immediately came back to the room. Inhaled dinner, and watched the local news to find out that the Russian River had indeed flooded, which had plenty to do with why the downtown area was flooded and most of those streets were blocked off. If you lived inside the city, you had to take an alternate route just to get to the airport and that was a royal pain I'm sure.
The landlord's son came by our room to get the first and last month's rent w/pet deposit, same as a month's rent (total check amount was $3600 and I almost choked when I saw it). This guy was high on himself and his opinions about everything. You think I'm opinionated? Oh boy...you had to be there when he started trashing all people (yes, ALL of them) who were using government assistance of any kind, then made the mistake of going into all the 'handouts' to Native Americans (aka Indians). Did I mention that one of Jack's grandmothers was 2/3 Cherokee? Do you now know how fast the conversation turned ugly and how quickly this guy was told to get out? I'm sure you can put the pieces together well enough. That was nasty! We never saw that guy again.
The following day, Bekins finally decided to show up at our new house and they had a new member of their crew....a prostitute they picked up in Los Angeles. They decided to take their live entertainment 'to go', and that crew sure did look happy, with a slight look of embarassment on their faces.
This chick was a trip; spinning around the house, laying her hands all over everyone, telling everyone how much she loved them, telling Jack and I how good she was at organizing and that we should hire her to help us unpack and decorate, ad nauseum.
Within a few hours, she asked where a bathroom was (as if she hadn't already seen the one in the hallway), so I pointed it out. She was in there for a while, but finally reappeared to mingle, this time with an even BETTER twirl, suddenly speaking spanish to some of the crew members who didn't speak english (and the looks on their faces said more than this chick ever could), etc.
I walked into the bathroom and sure enough, there it was: A used syringe in the toilet. Catch 22: We wanted them all gone so much that we didn't call 911. We simply walked her out to the front of the house and began a conversation about 'better days' (ours had just begun, however), and she opened wide about that. It worked out perfect, because the crew finally got in a groove and unloaded everything at the speed it should've been done in the first place.
The drawback is that this chick now wanted to move in because 'we tugged on her heart strings'. (uhh...yeah, right), but we reminded her where her home was and her face suddenly gave a quick look resembling a light bulb when turned on. The appeasement worked, the crew finished, and they took Twirly Puss with them.
12 days (Include March 2 and go until the 13th), approximately 8 states, several nice detours throughout, an arrival which began badly, but ended up with Jack and I talking sweet nothings to a smacked out hooker in our front yard and suddenly, there was silence....except for the rain.
We walked into the house, looked in every room at all the neatly stacked boxes, walked back to the den, took a seat on one of the couches, took a look at each other and our eyes said it all: "We have finally arrived and we're finally starting over....as soon as we get some sleep in our own bed."
In the video clip is a good example of what we saw on a daily basis. The featured mall in this clip was less than 3 miles from our house (Mom dragged us through there in record timing, especially when she saw the word "Macy's" on the building), and the area featured in the clip was between 5-7 miles away, but in the same foothills. I dealt with that real estate company, frequently, when I was still a courier for Fidelity National Title, which I eventually worked for in the TSG department (compiling title search packages).
It's truly a beautiful place, if you ever get to go. I loved it and would give just about anything if I could move back. This clip certainly took me back to better days and a better time. In a way, watching this clip really hurt my heart. I guess you could say I'm an exception to the old saying, "You can't take the hometown out of the boy.", because my real home is still there. The sights, sounds, even the smells are still that tactile with me and I have no reason to explain why. It simply exists and I have no reason to lie about it.
Here, you can be who you are and not deal with petty judgements, and people believe in live and let live (completely). I never lived so close to neighbors, yet had so much privacy, and times were simply better.
In this country, we will probably never see times as good as the 90s again, and it saddens me. Also, I was never my complete self again after leaving here.
Take a good look at the area that welcomed me with open arms and would gladly have me (or anyone else) back, if only I could afford it....and I'm not talking about a gated community. I'm just talking about the area, in general. How I miss it......No one will ever know or understand how much this place still means to me. No matter where I may go, my heart is still here and will probably always be.