05.26.06
“I see your silver shining town, but I know I can’t go there –Your streets run deep with poisoned wine, your doorways crawl with fear. So I think I’ll drift for ol’ where it’s at, where the weed grows green and fine and wrap myself around a bush of that bright, whoa, oh Oaxaca vine…” Grateful Dead
Meanwhile, X and I had been exploring the city. We went to Golden Gate Park and Haight Ashbury, looked up the old Grateful Dead house at 710 Ashbury St. and caught some free concerts including a great day long one with Jefferson Starship, Sons of Champlin, Digga Rhythm Band with various members of the Grateful Dead and more. We were also making what money we could busking. During our wanderings one afternoon, we stumbled upon the Mars Hotel.
It actually looked exactly like the picture on the album cover except that it was in the city of San Francisco and not on Mars. We were so excited. We immediately sent postcards to all of our deadhead friends telling them about our unexpected and very thrilling find. Well, remember the hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska that got demolished years later? A few weeks later, some friends arrived from Connecticut and, of course, the first thing they wanted to see was the Mars Hotel. We took them there right away, but it had been demolished a few days before. We were so disappointed, and our friends naturally thought we had made the whole thing up. We wondered ourselves. Our brains were often a little foggy, but we ran into other hippies who confirmed it’s location. Our credibility was restored and our reputations soared. The collector was still pressuring me to sell my unborn child or her non-existent twin, the commune within the commune was getting tired of us crashing on their couches, and we were having a baby. Time to move on to greener pastures. Our friends had a vehicle and wanderlust. We packed up once again and headed up and down the California coast.