crossed I wondered where that mecca of music a few  years back, the Filmore West had
 been.  Matthew isn't into that sort of music so I didn't ask.                            
                                                               A little while on we     
 saw the street numbers vere getting around to the one we wanted and got off.  Just       
 across the road from the stop was the place we wanted, we knocked.  Jerry lived on       
 the top story of what might have been a shop in a few nice rooms there.  He gave us      
 his quick five cent tour of the place and we ended up pondering a long ago Westercon     
 from the photos and notes pinned to a board in the lounge room.  The meeting hadn't      
 attracted many people, only Valma and Matthew and I and one other and so though it       
 would have been nice to have met more people we spent an enjoyable hour of so talking
 about various things.  We were looking forward to meeting Charlie & Dena again but I     
 twink we wouldn't have minded if they'd been just a little bit late.                    
                                                                      There was a knock
 at the door, it was Charlie.  He came up for a moment but Dena was still in the car     
 and driving around the block waiting for us.  We bid a hasty farewell to everybody       
 and went down to the street for Dena to come back.  Soon the car appeared around the     
 corner and pulled up to a halt next to us, as we climbed in Dena remarked that as        
 she had driven around before somebody had dropped a rock onto the roof of the car        
 but she hadn't seen where it came from.  Instead of driving straight off we retraced     
 the route she'd taken the previous time to see what happened, but nothing did.  Me      
 drove down beside MacArthur Park and an electric bard was giving a concert to a large
 crowd,  That seemed more like the sore of thing I'd imagined.                            
                                                               The drive from there to
 Berkeley would have taken about balf an hour over the Bay Bridge but they decided to     
 take us the long way around and show us some of the sights, especially when they         
 heard that we hadn't seen the Golden Gate Bridge.  In truth we had caught a glimpse of
 it from the top of Telegraph Hill but that was all.  The drive out to the bridge took
 a long time, or seemed to, gradually the urban landscape seemed to dissolve into        
 country and slowly we became aware that the bridge was looming up ahead of us.  It is
 an impressive construction, even more impressive for the land on which it is built,      
 No film or photograph can really capture the feeling of the bridge which is far more     
 then we had expected.  I suppose  we'd anticipated something like the Sydney Harbour
 Bridge but there is    really no comparison.  The bridge in Sydney hangs from one side
 of the harbour to the other, the Golden Gate leaps across the water from one rocky       
 headland to another.                                                                     
                     The bridge is, for all that, quite narrow and Charlie told us      
 that at times the traffic jams of cars trying to get over it are unbelievable.  We       
 crossed it when the traffic wasn't too heavy and it still seemed packed to me.  On the
 other side was a parking area which we pulled into to survey the land leading back to
 the bridge and the bridge itself.  They had probably selected the spot for the view      
 and it was well worth stopping at.  To our right the headland dropped into the water     
 and the bridge carried over to the other shore while in front of us and far to the       
 right the bay lay spread out before us, it's vast and beautiful and it no wonder that
 people who live around it are proud.  T. would be too.                                   
                                                        The country we drove through as
 we continued was dry and bare, hilly and with little population.  The bay was usually
 to be seen. off to our right, always beautiful.  As  we drove Charlie & Dena kept up     
 a running commentary, most of which passed from our minds as we passed through the       
 landscape.  The shore of the bay was marshy in places and we drove past a large          
 stone building stuck out in the marsh at the edge of the water, they told us it was      
 San Quentin prison and I really wouldn't like to be there.  Though we were so close      
 to such a large city the impression was of total desolation for miles around the         
 prison.                                                                                  
        After a while we saw another bridge, very unlike the Golden Gate because even
 though it was much longer it was very low to the water and if my memory serves me        
 right some of it actually floats on the water.  It was only a two lane bridge but so     
 that it could carry enough traffic the lane going in the opposite direction to us        
 ran above us.  Crossing seemed to take a long time, the bay stretched away on either     
 side of us and when we reached land again we were in the area of Richmond, Berkeley
 and Oakland.                                                                             
             For a while we drove through industrialised areas but we drove up into     
       

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