Ah, planning.

I wonder, is it strange that the thing that has me the most nervous about my participation in AIDS LifeCycle is not the work I'll be doing, but how the hell I'm going to make the logistics of getting myself up to San Francisco work...

To be honest, I'm a little scared of going to San Francisco by myself. I don't really know why--maybe it's the size of the place. I've been to Portland by myself, but that somehow felt different. Portland is compact and logically arranged, and if you get lost there, you can usually figure out how to get back. Portland is a bit laid back--like a pleasantly overgrown version of Old Town Pasadena. San Francisco seems somehow to be a bit more hardcore. I've never really gone to quite such a big city by myself before. I know, for someone who takes buses all over L.A. (yes, people do take buses in L.A.), it should be a piece of cake, but it's different having grown up in L.A. and knowing my way around like the back of my hand.

Basically I'm gonna get off a Greyhound in S.F. on Saturday morning of The Week, and have to get myself to some godforsaken place called the "Cow Palace" in Daly City. Cow Palace??? Images are conjured up in my mind that I'm not sure I like....... I can't help but envision a cow decked out in a robe (and sunglasses, for some reason) sprawling on a throne in a palace.

No biggie. I think. Right? The Muni trip planner sends me on the BART, the Google trip planner sends me on an express bus down the 101 freeway, a fellow Roadie who lives in Pacifica tells me to take the bus on Mission Street that she can't remember the number of. Then another bus on Geneva Ave, and you're there. "Ask the bus driver before you get on if they go to the Cow Palace," she tells me. "If it's the wrong bus, you'll end up back on Mission Street." "When you get off, make sure you go to the right! Don't turn left, or you'll end up in the projects!" Great... "No, really, that's not the greatest part of Daly City, so don't cross Geneva Avenue." But I can't miss this place, right? It's a big arena, and won't there be a couple thousand people with bicycles? "No, it's behind the big arena--you can't see it from the street." Oh, wonderful.