USA 14

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Our last day and I feel rough. My body has taken some serious abuse these last two weeks but that is the trade off you gotta make. It feels strange to be back in San Francisco like this. I have done this before when I stopped off in Bangkok for a few days on my way back home from New Zealand at the end of my Asian Odyssey. What to do? Really you should take it all in, visit somewhere you previously didn't have time to visit, do something really iconic. But I can't, because I'm tiring and it's still bloody hot so I grab a coffee, a Gatorade and some kettle chips from the shop next door, like I have done on many a morning whilst over here, and bed down in the common room of the Green Tortoise to wait for Nathan.
When he arrives we puzzle over which is the best route to take to Haight Ashbury. I couldn't have gone sight seeing even if I wanted to because we've got to go shopping musical instruments and rare vinyl!
We decide to walk to town and catch what we can from there, be it tram or bus. We find the latter but for some reason it's not going all the way to our intended destination, despite the timetable saying to the contrary. It's too hot to hold out for something better though so to hell with it. On being unceremoniously ejected somewhere near Mission we decide we may as well walk the rest of the way. Not a good idea. For the first time San Francisco's hills become a real issue and it takes about 20 or so minutes before we have made Haight.
I go straight to Amoeba records to purchase Weird War's 'If You Can't Beat 'Em, Bite 'Em (A piece of vinyl that takes some time to get a release my side of the pond, a fact that makes me very grateful when I go to see them play live at the Metro on Oxford Street some months later. Indeed that evening is added an extra poignancy when Max decides to take me up on an offer of a spare ticket. It will be the first time we have met since that fateful day in Vegas and he won't have been back along himself carrying on as he did to LA and then New York. A fact that tells because the man appears jaded, both physically and mentally - he won't even drink that night). I also buy a deleted version of the Amboy Dukes 1970 album 'Marriage on the Rocks' for about 7 dollar. I'm glad I didn't pay anymore than that either.
And done with this we head off for some food before Nathan spends the next hour deliberating over whether to pay the 800 dollar needed for the lap-steel guitar he has seen. It's the same model as the one he had a look at in Vegas, except it works out at over 100 pound Stirling cheaper. I can't quite recall what I did during this time but it probably involved popping into shops that didn't really interest me, sitting on pavements, looking at passing girls, drinking water and smoking cigarettes.
When Nathan does eventually emerge from the music shop, lap-steel triumphantly in hand, we get a cab straight back to out hostel, such is the weight and value of this musical monolith he's invested in.
Which is a shame because we are back stuck in an area we know like the back of our hand. But we are tired and we do have to be up very early the next day to make our flight back to England (changing in Philly). So we head to Vesuvio and the "It's 1972" bar and then call early time. Except when we get back the common room is particularly vibrant and we end up chatting to the most politically savvy American we've bumped into the whole two weeks. He is actually interested in knowing how the British political system works and he is aware his own country's egregious position in the world in a way his fellow countrymen seem often too willing to ignore. Which all means that we don't go to bed until gone one and we have to be up at six for an intercontinental journey home.

It's been great guys, it really has. The USofA... it's a gas, no really man, I love this country. I will be back and hopefully next time I will get spend more time in Yosemite.

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