High Times In San Jose

Each Friday, I have to check out of my little bungalow in Carmel.  Hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts or anything more luxurious than a pup tent is usually booked months and sometimes a year in advance.  Sometimes it's events over at Luna Seca or perhaps an art or film festival but at any rate, rooms are at a premium there on the weekends.

So, with the Carmel room situation at hand, I usually leave the office Friday afternoon, zip up the road to San Jose, grab a hotel room at the Hampton Inn, exchange the rental car and generally hold up there until Sunday when I return back to the Carmel and the Monterey Bay.

Friday evening, when I went out to eat, I found an inordinate amount of police (mostly motorcycle cops) hanging around the shopping center near the hotel.  Thinking it seemed a bit weird seeing lots of Cop bikers in different uniforms, I speculated on the reason but never came up with a definitive answer.

As an added benefit, the people in the room on one side of me played salsa music well into the night and the couple on the other side had a domestic dispute accented with yelling, crying and door slamming, all of which was in Spanish rendering it completely unintelligible to me.

This morning, as I filled up the car just before going to the airport, I noticed the streets filled with bikers and even more cops.  As I turned onto Kurtner toward the freeway, I could see lots of biker types entering a funeral home and cemetery nearby.  At that point, I guessed it was some kind of biker funeral.

As it turns out, the Hells Angels president had been mortally wounded over at a casino in Sparks, Nevada last month and they were finally getting around to having his funeral.  Let me see a hand of those who do not see trouble coming here.  Yep, it sure did.  Before that thing was over there had been another shooting at the funeral resulting in another Angel getting his one way ticket punched.  Who couldn't see that coming?

I could have gone up to San Francisco or Oakland but hearing the news of Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and Bart protests, I thought it best not to go into the inner city.  I just didn't need to get arrested as an innocent bystander.  Maybe a few years ago, I'd have been compelled to check it out but not today. Besides, traffic was horrible in the area.

With that, I'm glad I had elected to visit the Pumpkin Festival at Half Moon Bay and get caught in a couple of hours worth of a traffic jam.  Tonight, I'll reflect on my better choices and try not to make a spectacle of myself as I watch the half dozen or so Hells Angels toying with their Harleys down in the Hotel parking lot.  While I see no one openly carrying fire arms, some wear knives in scabbards looking as big as a Roman Short sword.

Tomorrow, I'll be anxious to head back to Carmel where the most dangerous thing there is getting run over by someone's dog on the beach.