Last weekend was a clogging thing. It was in Grass Valley all day Saturday (starting at 9 and ending around 7 or 8). It was being put on by the Nevada County Tommyknocker Cloggers and it was called Old Time Rock & Roll Jamboree. I knew Grass Valley was about a three hour drive from home and sent in my registration about a month beforehand, but I didn't make hotel reservations until last minute because I kept forgetting to call in the evenings. I ended up, a few nights before the weekend, finally calling and getting a room at the National Hotel, a historic Victorian era hotel in Nevada City, just 5 miles north of Grass Valley. The website doesn't have much listed, but the rates were decent.
I drove up Friday night so I wouldn't miss anything Saturday. I was feeling kinda crappy, in a sour mood due to a low point on the emotional roller coaster and uncertainty about how the weekend would go. By the last half-hour I was feeling more normal.
The route was simple. I basically just had to drive up 80, then hop on 49 for the last 20 miles or so. Rather than deal with 80 in SF, I took 92 (San Mateo Bridge) over to 880, then up to 80. Even so, there were still more cars than I preferred, so I couldn't go quite as fast as I wanted to, but it wasn't that big a deal. I didn't realize, not having gone that way before, that I'd have to pay a toll at Carquinez Strait, just south of Vallejo, but that was only a minor annoyance and thankfully I had enough cash for it. There had been some traffic as I neared Sacramento, but it wasn't too bad either. The last hour or so finally showed a thinning of traffic, but I didn't feel the need to go into Speedy Gonzalez mode. Once I got on 49, the speed limit was 55, but since the highway was fairly hilly and twisty, I couldn't go a whole lot faster than that anyway.
I arrived in Nevada City around 10:30-11. It was late and the main drag was pretty quiet. I saw the hotel and it looked a bit spooky. In fact, all of the main street did. It definitely all felt old and there were steel plates regularly along the main drag as if construction had been going on. I drove around the block once, then chose a parking spot and went to check in to the hotel. As soon as I stepped out of the truck, I smelled the redwoods that were all around and felt the nice chilly night air. My sense of somewhat normalcy immediately settled into full-fledged comfort and happiness. The smell of the redwoods seem to do that to me. I have good memories associated with that smell.
I walked by the hotel bar
and into the hotel entrance.
The place was busy on the eyes. Not busy with people, just insanely busy carpet and wallpaper. The hotel lobby was on the second floor, past a Victorian restaurant,
up some stairs
and past a display case full of old hotel registers and "coins" and room keys.
The check-in area was in a lobby area with couches, more display cases, an old square piano and an arch for small weddings. I didn't get a better photo of that space. Ah well.
There were also french doors leading out to a large balcony/veranda with tables and umbrellas, though it was closed down for the evening (and still closed on the morning I took the above photo). The hotel clerk's area was "typical": somewhat barred open space to do transactions through. The door into the room was open, indicating that the bars were for show, to maintain the authenticity. A still functioning time clock sat by the door, with current time cards sitting beside it, so it must still be used by the staff. I checked in, got my key, which looked like it could go to "The Lost Room", except that mine was green.
I parked around the back/side of the building and went in with my stuff by way of the back gate and yard and back door into the hotel.
The hotel hallways were full of a large assortment of pianos, wacky paintings, such as one of three wild-eyed horses, and wacky wallpaper that almost made me feel dizzy.
The place smelled old, and even though it was a non-smoking hotel, the single-paned windows didn't fully block out cigarette smoke from the people outdoors. I got into my room, took a look around, heard the music from the karaoke going on in the bar below me, and I started laughing. It was all just so wacky. I did have an A/C,
but the wallpaper was overly busy with oddly colored flowers,
the double bed creaked,
the armoire didn't latch,
the TV was a fat old CRT, and what looked like a closet door was actually an adjoining door between rooms that was also used as a narrow storage space for your standard hotel luggage rack. The bathroom wallpaper was different, but equally busy, and primarily green.
Everything worked, but having the karaoke music accompanying the intake of it all tickled my funny bone and I kept chuckling as I settled in for some reading before hitting the hay. I was feeling much better about the weekend.
I slept pretty well, though I heard the bed squeak every time I shifted and at one point I heard some noisy motorcycles, but otherwise it was fine.
The next morning, I got ready and packed for the day, went down to get my complimentary tea in the old Victorian restaurant, but no one was there. I heard people in the kitchen, but there was no bell to ring or anything. I waited a few more minutes, then decided to just head out. There were now three motorcycles in the back yard where there had only been one the night before. That explained the motorcycle engine noises I had heard.
I drove to the fairgrounds, paid my parking and followed other cars to Gate 5. There was a Draft Horse Show going on at the fairgrounds as well, so I knew that if I needed a break from clogging, I'd have plenty to do to pass the time. As I got my stuff, I noticed Deann (pronounced Dee-Ann), one of the core women in my clogging group, at her car, a row behind me. This assured me that I was in the right place. I grabbed my stuff and snuck up on her and her partner, Cindy, to say hi and tag along. Deann correctly guessed that I needed to use her as my guide, since I had never attended this thing before. We walked into the fairgrounds and along the walkway, past some small food booths, up to a smallish barn-type building, called Sugar Pines Lodge. This was where we were dancing. A concrete slab, further along the pathway past at least 20 food and merchant booths, was where a little more clogging would go on, but that was primarily used as an intro area to teach people the basics of clogging. I checked in, dropped my stuff off at a chair, then wandered out to look for breakfast. I found an organic crepe booth, called Calla Crepe, and got a California Crepe, which had egg, avocado, olives, peach salsa and a few other things. They served it folded up into a triangle and folded into a pocket of deli paper. It was delicious!
After I ate, I went back and danced it up. The floor was concrete, so I quickly roughened up my taps a bit. I'm going to have to get another pair of shoes and clogging taps for dancing on Mondays since that floor needs pristine taps. It gouges easily if there are rough edges, which is a bit of an inconvenience, but we don't have a better place to dance. By 11am, other people I dance with on Mondays had arrived and started dancing amongst the crowd too. Most of them drove up that morning, so they couldn't make it by 9am. I eventually took a lunch break and had one of "Uncle Jack's Pasties". It was piping hot and pretty good, but the ones at Duke of Edinburgh (in Cupertino) are tastier in my opinion. On most of my breaks, I'd cross paths with Cindy, Deann's partner, who doesn't clog and would wander around the booths for a bit, then go watch the clogging, then go wander some more.
I had brought my Camelbak, so I found a water faucet and filled it up, so I could dance and drink water without having to stop and find my water bottle. The day got pretty warm, so I had a frozen fruit sorbet treat at some point, as well as an ice cream at another time. I wandered around some vendor booths, during a couple breaks, but nothing really pulled me in. While having lunch, I sat on some benches by a nearby stage and was entertained, along with the rest of the audience, by a gentleman who sang and yodeled quite wonderfully, accompanied by his guitar, squeeze box, or harmonica, depending on what he preferred to use at the time. At one point, he even pretended to play trumpet, but it was just his voice and lips. It was amazingly good.
I got to see some draft horses during the lunch break, wandered off to check out other booths, then joined the other cloggers gathering on hay bales and bleachers in the grass in front of a raised stage near Sugar Pines Lodge. Starting at 1:00, various clogging exhibition groups strutted their stuff, usually multiple times, with other groups in between each routine to give everyone a break. I really enjoyed watching the performances by the people I usually dance with, but I have to admit that my favorite dances were the two shown below. Sorry for the people in the foreground, me chatting in the background, and really shaky camera work. My main reasons for liking them the most are that it's modern music, high energy, and the steps are a really good fit to the music. Also, I seem to like stomps, though only where appropriate.
First, dancing to Tik Tok, by Kesha: Ian and Kiernan
Second, dancing to Never There, by Cake: The Tommyknocker Hotshots
The show took right around an hour and a half. It was great watching them all, though the hay bale seats were half in the scorching sun by the time the show was over, so those seats had cleared out and people were standing off to the other side, trying to watch without getting sunburned. After the show, people started heading back to the barn, where the A/C was running full bore. Another workshop got started, so we kept our cool and danced a good bit, keeping hydrated. I made friends with the people who had parked their stuff on either side of "my" chair. I had seen them around at other clogging functions in the bay area. Turns out they are a mother and son, Urlene(sp?) and James, that dance with the Redwood Country Cloggers, who dance in the Santa Rosa/Petaluma area.
I skipped one of the more advanced workshops later in the afternoon to take a break and get some more food. I ended up getting a peaches and cream crepe from Calla Crepe. Oh my goodness! It was cinnamony and tasted like fresh cut peaches and yet it tasted like a peach cobbler. It was just... so... delicious!
I walked back, hung out by the door, savored my crepe, and watched the workshop. I danced a little bit more, then watched some more. Around 5:30, the evening dancing kicked in. The local club members set up some food at a table and then the dancing started. The evening dance means there are no more workshops or learning of songs. It just becomes dance time. A cuer would hop on stage, play the song they had taught earlier that day, then an assortment of other songs. The other songs were either old familiar ones, or they had enough familiar steps in it as to be danceable the first time. After 4 or so songs, the next cuer would hop on stage.
I went into the evening dance feeling pretty tired and sore from all the dancing that day, but somewhere early on my second wind kicked in. Something funny during that part of the night: One of the cuers paused between songs to ask, "Alright. Who here ISN'T sore and tired?" Everyone looked around, kind of smiling exhaustedly, and then we see one guy raise his hand. He's a handsome guy wearing a cowboy hat and leaning against the door watching everything. Most of us recognized him as the partner of one of the cuers, so we started laughing and the cuer on the stage laughed as well and gave him some humor-filled guff about it not counting if you're only there as a spectator. He threw some other retort back along the lines of, "Well, you asked." We got a good chuckle out of it and then continued on with the dancing.
I skipped some songs, especially the more advanced ones I had chosen not to learn that day. People started trickling out around 6:00. By 7:00-7:30, there weren't more than a dozen people left. I was still having a great time and the cuers kept going. They threw out song names and let us choose the ones to be played. James and Urlene, pretty die hard cloggers, headed out not far from the end. They were going to be driving back to the Santa Rosa area, so they needed to hit the road. We said farewell and promised to visit together at the next shindig. Most everyone was tuckered out. I wasn't sure why I still had energy, but I just went with it and helped convince the cuers to do a few more songs, then we called it a night. I headed back to the hotel, still all goofy happy from the energy kicking through me. Clogging just does that to me, I suppose, especially when I'm dancing to songs I know or if they have great energy to them.
I hopped in the shower and washed off all the sweat from the day. I almost decided to wander around the town, but I ended up just eating dinner in my room and watching one of the movies I had brought along with me. I went to bed somewhat early, trying to ignore the cigarette smoke that had once again snuck in from outside the window, and used earplugs this time, because I wasn't tired enough to be able to ignore the karaoke downstairs as I drifted to sleep. Once again, sleep was pretty good.
I got up around 8, cleaned up, took my stuff out to the truck, then walked down the block to a cafe called South Pine Cafe.
It was quite busy, but not so busy that I had to wait to be seated, and I could tell that a goodly number of the guests were locals. The sign outside drew me in because I laughed when I saw that it said "Breakfast - Lunch - Beer".
They were also a health-food type cafe, in that they had fresh squeezed carrot juice and ginger and other health-foody drink options. On top of the health-food drinks, they had fresh orange juice and lemonade with other fruits added, such as olallieberries. They even had compostable "to go" boxes, which I don't see too much of outside of the bay area. I ordered orange juice and Olallieberry French Toast. I've only really seen olallieberry-adulterated food in the San Luis Obispo area, so I was surprised to see it up in Grass Valley. The orange juice tasted good, but the french toast took longer than I expected to arrive. When it did show up though, it was good, albeit a little dry. It certainly looked great and the olallieberries were delicious.
The syrup came in a ketchup bottle with the sort of spout I've seen on olive oil containers. I thought it was a neat reuse of the container. Oh, also, when I got my orange juice, there was a huge slice of orange on the glass. It wasn't just a wedge. It was a 3/4" thick slab of orange. It was crazy-huge, for a glass rim decoration, and made me laugh as I grabbed it and ate it.
I wandered down the street back to the hotel, taking pictures. Here's the whole outside of the hotel. Front:
Side:
(my room has the red curtain)
Back:
Then I went in, took more pictures (the ones that have been scattered throughout this post), checked my room for anything I'd left behind, then checked out and headed home.
Heading home, I somehow missed seeing the signs for both bridges off of 880 to take me to the Redwood City side of the bay, so I continued south, gave Chris and Ryan a call and visited with them for a bit, then I headed home. I napped, called a friend and arranged dinner plans, then went and watched "Easy A". It definitely amused me. Afterwards, I stopped by home, then headed to Mountain View to meet up with Felicia and Eric for dinner at Fiesta Del Mar Too. As I parked, I noticed Carmin, my clogging buddy, walking down the sidewalk with her husband. They live near that part of Mountain View and it looked like they were headed home from dinner. I parked, hopped out and chased her down to say hi. Sure enough, they were off towards home after dinner and we laughed over catching each other. We chatted for a bit, then parted ways. I enjoyed dinner (when don't I enjoy Mexican food?), then we wandered down Castro Street to the bookstore to see what there was to see, then said farewell and we all headed off for home.
It was a very busy, eventful weekend. I had a great time.
