4 October 2021 Summer of Seether Sacramento Day 1: Take It (To the tune of Fake It)

Take It * (to the tune of Fake It)

              Good God, you're packing even more stuff

               Good God, you're taking it all

               Good God, there's stores in Sacramento

                The truck's all packed, so get in the truck don't you

                Take it, you don't really need that

                Take it, you can buy later on

                Take it, you're bringing too much crap

                Whoa, you're packing like an idiot.     

I've been looking forward to this trip ever since I bought my tickets to the Aftershock Festival in Sacramento, day two, Friday the 8th.  This was going to be my first ever Seether concert.  As they added Idaho and then West Valley I snapped up tickets, making up for lost time.  Since I just became "somewhat" obsessed just last fall, I have twenty years of concerts to make up for.  Then they added the Vicennial and how could I not?  I mean we are right there!

My husband is again my tolerant plus one.  I said, "If you had enough Seether from Thursday night, you can always go see Metallica." He said, "If it gets too loud, we can just leave."  Yeah, like that's going to happen.  So we are going early to have a little vacation and I'm good up until the day before.  I know I will have a good time, but I get anxious leaving my own space and habits and going out to the great unknown.  So of course I need to delay packing by catching up on housework that I've been ignoring because suddenly I'm leaving and it's the traveler's equivalent to making sure you have clean underwear in case you get in an accident.  Gosh, if I'm killed on this vacation, I certainly want to make sure I have a clean bathroom!  So, Sunday is an anxiety fest, counting socks and underwear to make sure I have all the days covered, printing out receipts for hotels and venues, packing more shirts than one woman will ever need for a week of vacation and shopping for those little travel bottles of shampoo and cream rinse, even though I already have some left from Idaho.  

Monday is trip day, we are driving, and although I have packed the night before so we can leave early, my husband has yet to get his duffle bag out to even start packing his clothes.  This is bad, because the longer he leaves me to wander around the house, the more shit I think I need to take.  I keep thinking of things that might be good to have, channeling my pioneer ancestors.  I think that if I forget the dental floss or don't bring enough books to read or don't take a bottle of Advil, once we pack everything in our Conestoga Wagon and head out, there will be nowhere to get anything.  Out on the prairie.  I'll need a box of masks to pick up those buffalo chips.  Maybe I read Little House on the Prairie too much when I was a kid.  

We head out of town and then get off the freeway because we were going to stop for gas before we left.  Now I got up at seven and had breakfast before wandering around the house looking for trouble.  My husband has breakfast at a quarter to eleven via the McDonald's drive through.  That's why we forgot to get gas and had to get off the freeway.  I had the first leg, across the Salt Flats and he got the second leg in Nevada.  Which, unlucky for him, meant he had to slow down at every construction zone across the state.  Not that there was anyone working on anything past about 2:00 in the afternoon, but the cones were still up.  It's not like it's cost effective to have the cones put out in the morning and taken up every night but 80 mph down to 55 mph back 70 down to 55.  Etc. etc. etc.  For our metric friends that's 127 km down to 80 km, back up to 112 back down to 80.  All the way across the state.  Interesting trivia about Nevada.  They have markers for the highway patrol that are like mile markers, but with a blue top instead of the mile marker yellow.  Just before a hwp turn around is one blue marker to tell them it's coming up and then two more blue markers, one on either side of the turn around.  Pretty cool idea, we thought.  So I wonder what Seether is doing as we travel across Nevada.  They just finished up the weekend with South Carolina-Georgia-Florida so hopefully they are home washing their clothes so they can pack for Sacramento.  Do you guys get to listen to other bands at festivals when you aren't playing yourselves? I hope so.

We spent most of the time listening to Second Chances : a marine, his dog, and finding redemption by Craig Grossi, a continuation of his book Craig and Fred.  Fred being the dog he smuggled out of Afghanistan in a duffle bag.  I can highly recommend both books.  My husband got the Aftershock festival website up and we listened to songs of other artists playing on Friday that we didn't know.  Besides Seether, which is why I'm going, and Metallica, who, if we didn't know who they are, our special Aftershock wrist bands would probably electrocute us when we tried to enter the venue, we didn't know anyone else very well.  I had Skillet "starred" because I know some of their songs and want to hear more.  I heard of Volbeat but didn't realize they were Danish.  My husband being from Danish ancestors thought he should give them a listen.  We tried Suicidal Tendencies.  Not our cup of tea.  Butcher Babies, "Is that really the song 'They're coming to take me away, Ha Haa' the same one that was playing in the 70's?"  Yes, yes it is.  They do a great cover of it, too.  My friend had the 45 of that and when you flipped it over, it played the whole song again backwards.  Ayron Jones, who we both really liked the sound of.  Rock-Delta Bluesy.  We "starred" him for Friday.  My husband was listening to everyone through You Tube, so it moved on to other artists not at Aftershock.  Dead South "In Hell, I'll be in good company." and "Black Honey" by Thrice.  "Stop right there" I said, "I'm trying to learn that one".  Little did I know that my husband knows most of the words already.  I need to talk to that man more often.

We came in to Lake Tahoe by the evening.  We weren't sure exactly when because we weren't sure our phones and watches were showing home time or Nevada time.  They evidently are able to figure out what time it is better than we can because they all had the Nevada time.  The truck didn't know any better.  But the radio sounds great.  Lake Tahoe has a big billboard that says, "Back by popular demand." with a picture of a face mask on it.  We are now back to wearing masks.  Again.

P.S.  Why a laundry basket, you ask?  Well, we parked in the parking garage and schlepped our luggage from the truck back to the hotel without benefit of a luggage trolley. Two laptops, one bag with books, one camera bag, one suitcase, one large duffle bag and a laundry basket with pillows from home across the top.  I put the basket down to take a breather and the three couples coming out from the hotel gave me a wide berth as I hitched up my jeans that were falling down in the back.   My husband said if we keep traveling, maybe we should get a set of real luggage.  "What?" I said, "Is the laundry basket tacky?"  "As long as we don't mind looking like the Beverly Hillbillies."