DAY SIX - May 27, 2004

Day Six began with a less-than-enjoyable-middle-of-the-night bus transfer in Los Angeles, California. I was not even reminded of my last trip to California and the inspiration it had given me because I was too busy watching out for the Puerto Rican human garbage. While waiting in line and in between cigarettes, Martin and I made sure that we never had our back to him and we knew where he was the whole time. We found to our relief that he was going on a bus headed for San Diego and when we reboarded the bus to go north I became as unconscious as I could get, which proved to be difficult since we were sitting together. I received a cigarette opportunity in Bakersfield, California where I tried to remember as much as I could of a song about Bakersfield to Martin, but only came up with the "You don't know me but you don't like me" part and he didn't know it from that. I slept again for a little while when we got back on.

When I woke back up again, I asked Martin where we were. I was still half conscious when I thought I heard him answer "same fucking valley" and when I asked for confirmation after becoming fully awake at that point, he repeated that it was the San Joaquin Valley. He mentioned that he hadn't slept at all and that we were almost to our next stop. He also mentioned that I missed some beautiful scenery and I asked if he took pictures, which he hadn't. In our next stop in Fresno, California, he procured two postcards, one of which had a picture from the San Joaquin valley, which he gave to me without prior inquiry.

Modesto, California gave us an indication of what was about to happen with the scenery with some mountains in the background that looked half arid and half populated with trees. Before hitting those we went through a section of road that was surrounded by technology and computer-related corporations. We also began seeing the subway system, labeled "BART" which stood for "Bay Area Rail Transit". Then we started climbing the hills and saw some pretty amazing sights.

For one, most of the hills were steep, as if they were fairly new and hadn't eroded effectively as of yet. There were dirt bike race tracks all over them (this was confirmed by Martin who corrected me when I thought the tracks were for go-carts). There were also hundreds of windmills up and down the slopes, some spinning and a few that were not, but they were a pretty amazing sight. We took a few pictures and as soon as we came over the hill the area became quite populated. We passed through Hayward, which is where my younger sister lives. I was almost glad we didn't stop there.

Oakland, California was our next stop and we could already see that we were getting into major metropolitan areas before exiting. We could see the big city itself in the distance and when the exit ramp gave us a beautiful skyline view we took a few pictures. Oakland was much bigger and more populated than I had previously thought and we took pictures of some of those buildings as well. Quite a few people got off at this stop and while I smoked, an older guy said hi to me before Martin came over to talk to me. Then we got back on the bus with little preparation for what we were about to see.

We got onto the double-deck Oakland Bay Bridge, which also went through an island in the bay called Yerba Buena Island, partly through a tunnel. To the right we could see Alcatraz and I snapped a picture. Martin asked me if I was sure it was Alcatraz and I confirmed it via the atlas. After going over the island we got a full frontal view of San Francisco, California and were both very awestruck.

We milled around the Market Street area and took quite a few pictures of the art pieces they displayed, the mass of skyscrapers, and the public transit. I'm pretty sure we were smiling the whole time and both of us mentioned on occasion that this would be the place to live if we ever desired to get out of where we were. We had lunch (my first ever pastrami sandwich) and made it back to the bus station just in time to get rid of human waste and board.

Even the ride between San Francisco and Oakland was eventful as a Chinese couple took the front seat that of course was designated for handicapped folk. They complained something was dripping and that they were too old to be sitting in the middle of the bus and the bus driver wouldn't have it. He mentioned he could drop them off in Oakland and they could wait for the next bus, but when we got there he fixed the dripping problem and they sat where they were before, still trying to convince the driver that they should sit up front.

At the Oakland bus stop, I noticed one guy had been sitting in the same spot since before we got to San Francisco. I asked him what his deal was while we were smoking and he said he had a couple ribs broken from being kicked by a horse. He mentioned that since he did not have insurance the hospitals here could not do anything for him and he had to take a bus all the way back to Kentucky, where he was from. I hope he survived that trip, I can only imagine it would have been questionable that I would have if I were him.

There were minor traffic jams on the way to our next stop, but it still did not take us very long to get there. Sacramento, California was really a piece of work on our trip for a couple reasons.

First, when I got in line for the next bus, it was right behind this really nice guy named Kevin. We talked a minute and joked about the people being inspected, and by this time I was not worried since I knew they would not completely look through everything. However, when they got to Martin and I, they told Martin he had to get rid of the Swiss Army knife that I had given him to hold on to since the Phoenix, AZ - Blythe, CA incident. I spoke up, saying we had made it two-thirds of our trip without that being taken away and the inspector said "Well, here's where it stays". I told him that I had that knife for about five years now, and getting more petulant and angry, I voiced my unwillingness to give it to them. After about ten minutes of verbal back-and-forth, he told me that I could send it to my home express mail for five dollars and I told him I would do that. He told Martin after I walked away that since I was making such a big stink out of the knife, he wouldn't bother searching the rest of my things. By the way, I never got the knife back.

After boarding the bus in Sacramento at 9pm, you'd think the day would have nothing else to offer. Wrong.

About two hours north of Sacramento there's not much more to California except a mountain or two peppering the landscape. Martin had decided to take a nap and I was listening to my walkman when I noticed the window start to vibrate. Very shortly after, I heard a snap and the window loosened on it's left side and started to open, still attached by the emergency handle. I grabbed it and asked people in front of me to tell the bus driver what was going on but unfortunately they did not speak a word of English. I yelled out to the bus at large to alert the driver that the window was opening and got dumb looks from the other passengers. I smacked Martin's arm and didn't need to say anything before he noticed and reacted quickly.

So we had to stop the bus, and Martin tried to figure out what was wrong with the window. With the help of the driver he slammed it shut and it appeared to be stationary, so we started driving again. It started to do the same thing and I had to hold on to it again while the bus stopped again. This time Martin became his engineer self and with the help of three other passengers (including Kevin, a guy going to take his policeman's test, and I) he found out that one of the poorly made hinges had simply broke. He switched them around and borrowed another passenger's flashlight plus yet another passenger's screwdriver and fixed it within an hour. Everybody thanked each other for the help and we went on our way. That ended Day Six in grand style.