California Gold: Road Trip to San Jose

Text and photos by Jason McKenney

The chartered bus loaded up at Alpine Village in Carson at 5 am. It was still dark outside and even a bit chilly although it was late June. Before the clock struck 6 we were already departing the northern boundary of Los Angeles. Six hours later we would be in San Jose. Between the two cities I had my first real view of a part of California most people probably don’t think much about.

I was a season ticket holder of the LA Galaxy soccer team. One of their most hated rivals were the San Jose Earthquakes. Each season a bus filled with rabid supporters make the trek north to support the Galaxy on the road. This particular season I decided to join the party.

I was moderately aware of the fertile valleys of California. I knew it as America’s bread basket. The place the Okies traveled to in Grapes of Wrath like wandering Israelites searching for milk and honey. The politics of dealing with the migrant workers who harvested the fields was constantly being discussed on the radio in LA. But actually driving through it is an entirely different experience.

The droogies on the bus were pounding Bud Lights and singing fight songs before the crack of dawn. Amazingly they were able to keep it up nearly the entire drive. One guy was sleeping in his seat for the first couple hours. Pictures were being taken of him with phallic emblems being held up to his mouth. It was like being back in high school but with more tattoos and facial hair.

As the crazies sang and drank, I took note of the scenery. There is much more to California than Hollywood, beaches, and Internet start-ups. North of Santa Barbara one finds plenty of crops being grown: lettuce, strawberries, potatoes, nuts. We drove north along the 101 past Pismo Beach and Paso Robles, through the Santa Ynez Mountains via the Gaviota Tunnel, and down into the Salinas River Valley and its wide agricultural bottomlands. The scenery is beautiful and expansive. Crop fields stretched out to the east: spinach, grapes, broccoli, celery (a majority of salad greens consumed in the US are grown here). The rolling hills and rocky inclines revealed brief glimpses of the glimmering Pacific to the west.

San Jose lies at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay. The game was being played at Buck Shaw Stadium on the grounds of Santa Clara University just outside of San Jose. It’s a small stadium that normally seats about 7000 spectators. For special games like this they expand the seating to 9000. The college field provided an intimate and nostalgic atmosphere that reminded me of my own high school and college days.

As with any great rivalry in soccer, the teams aren’t the only source of competition. The supporters of each club also have a tendency to get into fisticuffs, and the supporters of LA and San Jose are no exception. The previous season, fans of San Jose had gotten into a fight with Galaxy fans in the parking lot after the game in Carson. For this match, a heightened security presence was felt. Police were monitoring everywhere on the lookout for the first hint of conflict in the crowd.

The game was a grind. The result was a 1-1 draw with plenty of chippy play and yellow cards on both sides. Our group had nearly made it out of the stadium and back to the bus without incident. We were delayed for nearly an hour as we found out that some of our compatriots had fallen victim to an attack from the local supporter group. Apparently one of ours had been sucker-punched near the bathrooms and had nearly retaliated before the police stepped in. Questioning and paperwork kept a couple of our guys from making the trip back in our bus so they remained in Santa Clara. I never did learn how they returned home.

The ride back to Carson felt twice as long as the drive up. We returned after midnight and by the time I was home and in bed I had been out for nearly 24 hours. That night I slept like a drunk, dreaming happily of long river valleys, fruit orchards, fresh salads, and California’s wonderful freeway system.