August 8-18, 2001: Michelle's Adventures in Journeyland (part 1)

A True Tale Sent to Friends
(or How I Survived JPP2001 and Over a Week of Journey Shows)

After I had finished my travels around California during Journey's 2001 Arrival Tour, I wrote up a massive essay that I sent off to friends detailing the whole experience.  It wound up being nearly 12,000 words long and was sent in two emails.  I've broken the tale up in to shorter segments for easier reading. Names referenced through out are friends and family that the recipients knew.

It was a whirlwind week and a half, and what a ride was. It was a serious downer to come back to reality. So, let’s begin this adventure at the most appropriate place, the beginning! I left work on Wednesday, August 8 at noon and raced home to pick up the tons of stuff I had to haul to the hotel for Journey Past and Present 2001 (JPP2001). Since I was the only committee member taking the afternoon off, I was the default courier for quite a bit of the goodies. Ana Marie would be meeting me later at the hotel after she picked up some surprises on her way in. Four trips from my apartment to my car, and I was ready to go (and man, do I hate stairs).

I arrived at the Holiday Inn Fisherman's Wharf a little before 2:00, which was a bit behind schedule. As I was checking in, Emerson reached me on my cell phone. He was in The City and about 10 minutes away from the hotel. Since he was my kind and generous volunteer to drive me over to Rent-a-Wreck to pick up the mini van we needed for the weekend, I was a bit pressed for time. Fortunately, I hadn’t unloaded anything from my car, figuring I’d check in first, park the car in the garage, and haul stuff up to my room in the elevator. I got settled with the front desk, moved my car, and made it back to the lobby with a few minutes to spare. Emerson showed up shortly thereafter, and drove me across San Francisco so I could pick up the van. (Bless you Emerson!) My next stop was to pick up the JPP T-shirts. Luckily for me, the T-shirt shop was a few blocks from Rent-a-Wreck, so I maneuvered the van down the street.

When I had stopped by the previous week to check out a sample T-shirt, it was after 6 with a Giants game pending (the shop is only about a mile from Pac Bell Park) so there was plenty of street parking. Not quite the case this time, but I managed to wedge the van into a space fairly close to the shop and dashed up to get the T-shirts. They had turned out fantastic! Michael had designed the logo and he and Ana Marie worked out the final layout and color scheme. I was thrilled as I loaded them into my car and made my way back across San Francisco.

Now, as a general rule, I hate driving through downtown SF and the tourist areas (North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, etc.) are even worse. The idea of doing that in a mini van had me a bit paranoid, but I managed to arrive at the hotel without hitting anything or running any red lights (which I seem to do quite a bit when I’m downtown.) Parking the darned thing was another story altogether, but park it I did, and not too far from my own car, so hauling stuff wouldn’t be too bad.

Three trips up the elevator, and all the stuff was loaded in my room. I finally grabbed some lunch (nine dollars for a tuna melt at Denny’s!), did a quick run to the grocery store for supplies, and then went back to the hotel to rest a little until Ana Marie arrived with the rest of the supplies. Got a call from Ana Marie around 6 telling me she had arrived safe and sound in Novato and was awaiting the arrival of our kind benefactor. And who might that be?? Well, back in April, most of the organizing committee (Darla, Mary Ann, Cheryl and I) went and saw Steve Smith play a local club. Since we’ve become regulars for his appearances in Nor Cal, he’s gotten to know us and after his set, he came over to say hello. Darla told him about JPP and asked him if he would be able to donate anything for us to raffle off. When he said yes, we expected a pair, maybe two, of drumsticks. What we got was entirely different! Besides giving Darla and I a bunch of autographed drum heads and about 30 autographed drumsticks in May, he contacted Ana Marie the Sunday before our event and said he’d been cleaning out his garage and would we be interested in some of the stuff he found. Naturally, the answer was yes, and so he and Ana Marie agreed to meet at a Starbucks in Novato.

When Ana Marie arrived, we got her checked in to the hotel and proceeded to unload her car full of stuff in 2 trips. As we unloaded the car, Ana Marie showed me what Steve had given her—a bunch of "Lights" CD-singles—all autographed—and two different sets of Vital Information posters! Wow.. there was enough of everything for everyone in attendance, plus a few spares that we decided to give to a few friends we met for the concert on Friday. There were also some MORE drumsticks from his Journey days. The man is just too cool for words! By this time it was about 8:00 and we were both starving, so we stashed the stuff in our rooms and took off for dinner, amazed at our good fortune.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was after 10:00 and we hadn’t even started putting together the ‘registration’ packages for our attendees. We pulled everything out and put together 16 folders with information and material for our guests. Hopefully they found it of use! We then went through all of our donations and decided what to do with them all. We had made up some prizes for a couple of games that I created—mouse pads, key chains, puzzles, and an awesome collage that Ana Marie put together—and agreed that these were the things that had to be earned. There were enough “Lights” singles to put one in everyone’s goodie bags, so we set those aside along with the tons of drumsticks. That left the signed drumheads and the autographed T-shirt and copy of Arrival we had gotten from Journey. Oh yeah, did I mention that? The band actually gave us stuff to give away!

We decided that all the autographed stuff would be raffled off, so that everyone had a fair chance of getting something. (We realized later that we had enough stuff for everyone to go home with an autographed prize!) By this time, we were getting a little tired and silly, and decided it would be a good idea to hang a copy of each of the Vital Information posters up in the room. One of them was from the mid-80s and, well, Steve Smith had that mid-80s thing going on. We were highly amused.

Ana Marie needed a smoke break at this point, so we went downstairs. It was after midnight, and we were beginning to wonder where the rest of our Nor Cal committee was. While Ana Marie and I were slaving away at the hotel, Darla and Cheryl had been taking in the Aerosmith concert at Shoreline! Just about the time Ana Marie finished her cigarette, who should pull up but Darla and Cheryl!! We got them checked in and unloaded (only 2 trips with the four of us—do you get the feeling we had a lot of stuff??) and caught them up on everything.

By the time we got to bed, it was nearly 2:00 am...just late enough to make that 7:00 wake up call tough. Thursday morning came all too quickly, and I blearily greeted the day. Since this was “Steve Perry Day”, Ana Marie and Darla were taking a group down into the Central Valley to visit Hanford, hometown of Steve Perry, and location of the now-famous radio station featured on the cover of Raised on Radio. Since I had parked the van and had the groceries to be used for breakfast, I was up with the birds to get everyone sent on their way. By the time I was able to get back to my room and crawl into bed it was 8:30. Lucky Cheryl got to snooze that morning.

to be continued...