Monday July 27, Home to S.F.

Monday July 27th was the longest day ever. We went to bed around 3 AM, knowing we had to wake up at 6. I was scared of oversleeping, and consequently, couldn't shut down completely. As I drifted, I heard a distant dog fight, then a rooster's crowing much closer. No clocks in the room, we only had our laptop alarms to wake us, but the laptops kept going to sleep. Around 6:30 we slowly got motivated and dragged our stuff out into the hall. Los Coronas were also leaving around that time, so we gave them a bleary farewell.

Lorenzo came a little after 7, he could barely speak. But his eyes were open far enough that he could drive, and we wedged ourselves into his Mom's small Mercedes wagon. The first hour of the drive was nearly wordless. We hit our first Autogrille of the day for coffee and bread, then popped a Los Twang Marvels CD in the stereo and things got a little livelier. Lorenzo feels that the festival was a tremendous success, though he was greatly disappointed with the problems with the restaurant, and so he may move the festival to another location next year.
It was a long drive to Milan. I could have booked the return out of Pisa and saved two extra hours in the car, but misunderstood the directive and blew it. Still, we saw some more beautiful parts of Italy. At one small town, Lorenzo said he wanted to stop there on the way back to get a kind of pasta that is only made in area. I have to marvel at that, is anything so provincial in America that you can't find it in a specialty shop, or have it FedEx'd to your door the next day?
Arrival at the Milan airport around 11AM, with hugs and "Until next time" goodbyes for Lorenzo. He has been the best tour manager we have ever had, I can't say enough about what an amazing guy he is, and how he has made this tour so easy for us.

A slow check in, then time for a quick meal or last minute souvenir shopping but not both. Joke security, even though the equipment was high-tech, the female guard was clearly more interested in chatting up a male guard than looking at the x-ray video screen. Hour and a half to Paris, and a quick change for the flight to Atlanta. As soon as we stepped on the jet, we are back in America, this is a Delta flight with no champagne or aperitifs, food you have to buy, decaf Starbucks and the same crummy movies we saw on the flight over. Seems like less leg room too. A few moments of tortured sleep– I am in a U.S. Government approved stress pose! Wake up slack jawed and neck cranked five minutes later, everybody who walked down the aisle got a dentist's view of my uvula.

It's a nine hour flight to Atlanta. When we arrive, the sun is still up. Immigration, customs, "Yes, it's great to be back, no I don't have any meat or gun products." Claim bags, recheck bags. We are on Concourse A, and have to get to Concourse F, so we take the train, which still took 10 minutes, so I'm glad we didn't walk. We are just about the last ones boarded on the flight to S.F. before the door is closed. I barely remember the five hour flight, it was just so much more of the same. Wives meet us at the airport but the luggage doesn't. It was bound to happen. Still, if I had to choose, I would take the wife over the luggage any day. So long band mates, see you in San Diego in two weeks for Tiki Oasis. An hour drive home, but in bed by 1:30 AM. I figure that in the last 72 hours, I have had less than 8 hours sleep.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Around Wednesday I woke up enough to turn on my cell phone, and there was one message. It was from late Sunday night left by a young lady named Odetta. She must have been using Lorenzo's phone, and she was looking for her mother.
Odetta and her Mom had checked into our hotel around the same time as us on Saturday and heard us speaking English so they asked us what was going on. We told them about the festival and they ended up going both nights. Not having a car, they hitched rides with the various bands going back and forth. Sometime late Sunday, the pair had gotten separated, and Mom thought Odetta had gone to the nearby campground with a young man for who knows what sort of illicit purposes. So, as we Pollos were leaving Calafuria, Mom was headed to the campground on foot because Odetta had the room keys. But, as I gather from the phone message, Odetta was back at the festival site, wondering for what illicit purposes her Mother had gone off to the campground??? I hope they found each other again, and had a good laugh at the generational miscalculations. Odetta's band is supposed to play in S.F. in a few weeks, maybe we'll get the whole story then.

And finally, a big "Thank You" to NYC's Unsteady Freddie for shooting these great videos, as well as videos of all the bands, and acting as MC for the Surfer Joe Festival.