If you're going to San Francisco...

We spent three days in the Bay Area, which was a blast - and busy, which is why we are posting from our campsite in Santa Cruz.

Their only show in San Francisco was at the Mojo Bicycle Cafe, a wonderfully accommodating venue, although very, very small. You never know how packed a Blind Pilot show is going to be. San Francisco turned out to be a city where they have quite a fan base. Andrew, the manager at Mojo, said that people had been calling all day asking about the show, and the turnout was amazing. People were overflowing out of the small cafe into the street, as the band played tucked away in the small area leading into the bike shop area of the cafe.

Kati and Ryan's friend Sarah drove down to the show and picked Ian up in Fort Bragg, where the rest seemed to have done him a lot of good. He had been riding everyday and the head cold seemed to be clearing up. Unfortunately, they ran out of gas along Highway 1 south of Mendocino, and showed up about an hour late. That didn't discourage the crowd, though, who hung out and actually seemed to get larger as we waited for the van to show up. Also, all of the biking buddies that we had met along the route since Brookings, OR, came out to see the band. The sidewalk bench was host to a little reunion, with bikers sharing stories about the past couple of weeks and lamenting that they had to return to their own lives and jobs so soon.

The band was unable to book any other shows in San Francisco, but they were able to jump on Point Juncture WA's bill (featuring Skylar Norwood of Team Evil, and the producer of Blind Pilot's album) at Sofia's Thai Kitchen in Davis, CA and play a few songs on KDVS before the show. They broke from the bike tour a bit and took the van up to Davis, which seemed ironic, considering that Davis and the UC campus there have some of the most bike-friendly streets in the country. The time in the studio was fun. They played a few songs and answered a few questions, and the Micheal, the DJ there and the booking agent for Sofia's, promoted their concert that night.

The band ended up staying in Davis on Saturday for a lot longer than they expected, and arrived back in San Francisco at 5pm. A stop at Mojo for a new tire for Luke's trailer and then over to where their gear was stashed whiled away another hour and a half. They decided to try to ride at least a little bit in order to break up the mileage, but weren't counting on the sun setting at 7:30 (yup, it is Fall now) and an intense, thick fog to roll in as they reached Daly City, about 10 miles south of San Francisco. Ryan decided that the best option was to get a cheap motel room and cram all eight of us in (Buzz was able to come in too). This threw them off of their course a bit the next day, adding an extra 10 miles to their route back to Highway 1. Ian decided to catch a ride with Kati and Sarah after reaching Half Moon Bay (and Olaf and Fen, who we picked up in San Francisco) as Israel, Ryan and Luke made an incredible 50 mile push down to Santa Cruz. Ian is not riding today, and he's not quite sure what he's going to do after their show at Monterey Live tonight, and Kati, Sarah, Olaf and Fen head back up to Oregon tomorrow.