Day 6
Rest Day
A 76'ers football game at Levi Stadium, San Jose, California, USA
Rest day - Jet lag
Journal
I woke to the noise of the boys heading out to work. I can only remember I was tired and felt like I was getting a cold. I was jet-lagged. The combination of a 14 hour flight crossing 18 hours of timezones, plus all the excitement and non-stop moving had knocked me out.
I woke up late after 10am. I got myself out of bed and made myself eggs. It was a luxury given I would be eating oatmeal for the rest of the trip. I hit the shower and cleaned myself up. I FaceTime’d my partner and posted an update to Facebook. I tried to figure out my next leg using freecampsites.net. I found the place the guy was talking about at Walmart. I’d stay there the following night. If only this jet lag would go away.
The biggest decision I had to make as how I would get to the Montery Festival of Speed on August 26th. It was August 10th, 16-days away. I opened up Google Maps on my computer and tried to devise a plan. I figured I could probably get to Canada and back. I had learned that there was a wildfire at Yosamite and it was closed. I would continue to follow the coast up do a loop around Canada and come back before crossing the country. It was possible but I’d be pushing it.
There wasn’t much for me to do so I decided to get to work on the USB. It was critical. I grabbed my leatherman and cut the wires off with the knife. I twisted the wires back together and wrapped them in some electrical tape I had in my toolkit. I remember trying to find a way to mount it. It wasn’t like the other one that was made for motorcycles. It had a handlebar mount. This one was for inside your car. I had to cut off some plastic to get a smooth finish to double-sided tape it to the top of the instrument cluster. It took me what felt like an hour or cutting into plastic with the serated blade.
I did a pretty good job because the USB charger stayed on for the whole trip.
It was wired to the ignition. It had a little green light to show it was working. I put the key in and turned it. The light turned green. Success! I plugged the USB into the charger followed by my phone. The familiar buzz and charging icon showed in the top right corner. Perfect.
I must’ve gone back to bed because the last I remember was Tim and his housemate returning from work. We went to the Walgreens in a white VW Polo GTI. I grabbed some supplies for the next leg of the trip and something for dinner with the boys. Tim offered to cook steaks on the BBQ at the complex. I remember he pulled them out and the things were huge. There was a table of people nearby where were were cooking. I spoke in my usual filthy mouthed Australian to him. “Hey, keep the swearing down. They don’t like it around here”, Tim warned me, “I was getting out of the car taking to my housemate and I called him a cunt. Like we usually do, you know, and this old lady was walking past us and heard. She was in complete shock. They’re not used to it here”. It was solid advice. For us it’s a term of endearment.
We sat down after dinner and contemplated what to do. Someone found Aussie rules football on the television. We all basked in the warmth of its familiarity. It was like being back home. “Let’s go out in San Fran”, Tim said excitedly. I was reeling from the jet-lag. My sinuses were killing and my eyes were watering. “I don’t know if I can do that. I think I’ll stay here”, I had to concede. I didn’t even know if I could leave the next day. “I agree, I think we should stay inside”, Tim’s housemate said. Tim was bummed. My body was happy.
It was about this time I realised I hadn’t seen my sunglasses. We looked around. Tossed the pillows up on the couch. Nothing. I remembered I had them at the football hanging off my shirt. The only time they could’ve fallen off was when we jumped the fence. I decided to have a look in the morning near the In and Out burger.
I can’t remember what we did later. Maybe we watched a movie. I know the rest was deserved because San Fran was 45 minutes away and I wouldn’t have gotten much sleep if we went out.
