The Heart of Rock and Roll

I was told this was post card worthy

DC, San Antone, and the Liberty Town.

Boston and Baton Rogue.

Tulsa, Austin, Oklahoma City. 

Seattle, San Francisco too...

("The Heart of Rock and Roll," written by Huey Lewis and Johnny Colla)

Hello from California.

There are days that can't be explained.

This is one.

I've been up since midnight, Pacific Coast time. Or 3 a.m. in New York.

With a thanks to Chris Kaelin, I was at JFK and on a spiffy American Airlines flight at 7 a.m.

It was just before 10:30 a.m. here when I got off the plane (1:30 in New York, of course).

A BART train ride to the fantastic JW Marriott hotel near Union Square and I was off and running.

I had a rental car reserved with a nearby Enterprise, but had begun to talk myself out of it. Don't spend the money and so on.

But when I found out I couldn't check in at the Marriott I knew I needed to do something. Sure I could walk around or take a cable car, but I decided to keep the rental car reservation. I walked three blocks to the Enterprise office, and was soon shown a choice of cars.

A quick note about this Enterprise office. There was no hard sell about anything. Nothing about gas or insurance or whatever. They were awesome.

They also gave me the choice of upgrading to a Tesla (!) or choosing a Chevrolet Camaro convertible.

I put the top down and I was on the road.

As with London years ago, I had truly one goal here. It was Abbey Road in the UK. It was the Golden Gate Bridge here.

It appeared in front of me in all of its majesty as I headed northbound on "The 101." But I decided not to stop, for I was going to hit another goal.

You might have heard of a little band called Huey Lewis and the News. We've talked about them here a few times.

Well with little fuss, I drove into the town of Mill Valley and passed Tamalpais High School. Now, I'm not sure where exactly, and given it was a school day, I wasn't going to try to find it, but "Tam" was the site for the album cover of FORE! in 1986.

Only a few blocks away sat a little bar called The 2am Club. In there, in all its glory, was the part of the bar that was featured on the cover of Sports.

Something to know about that cover. Huey Lewis is actually pasted into it from a separate photo, and if you look closely, guitarist Chris Hayes is also augmented because the photographer didn't like the way he looked in the actual photo.

But this was the bar, and the locals couldn't been nicer. The bartender (and I'm sorry to say I didn't get his name because I think he was the owner) was thrilled to hear that this nut from New York had traveled across the country to come to the site of the Sports shot.

"We see Huey occasionally, but he lives mostly in Montana now," he said.

Later, as I paid my tab, a man asked what I was talking about.

"Wait," he said. "Get out of here. That was really shot here. Holy..."

Sort of made my day to pass that info along.

Needing food, I shot over to a nearby In-N-Out Burger for a fast food lunch. Pretty tasty, I'll say that.

Then it was back to the Golden Gate and my goodness this really was a thrill. I photographed it from numerous angles before walking most of the way across it.

It's amazing, on this hot day, how you could feel the temperature get considerably lower as I walked out onto the bridge.

It was astoundingly beautiful, but duty called. I'm here to serve as moderator for the latest Hunt Scanlon conference, and Chris, Scott, Mike, Andy, and Eric were back at the JW Marriott. I needed to get back into San Francisco and earn my keep.

But first, I discovered Lombard Street.

The truth is, I wasn't going to go out of my way to see the famed "crookedest road in the world," but it was easy enough to find. Soon, I was navigating the tourists and the twisting turns.

Then it was back to the Marriott to help however I could before dinner, laughs, two cable car rides, more laughs, more work, and now, bed.

I'll reflect on this special day for many years, and it's a credit to Susan that I did it, because she kept encouraging me to do so.

I'm eternally grateful to her, and to Chris and Scott for asking me to be their moderator, as well as allowing me to come out here early to be a tourist.

(I realize this post is hitting after 1 a.m. on Thursday in New York, while it's still 10:30 p.m. on the west coast. For my money, that means #Project365 is still valid.)