Editor’s Note: Mark Ruckstuhl and his wife Sharon have shared many great times with DK and Anina. Here Mark reflects on he and Sharon’s first visit to the Sierra Nevada mountains two summers ago:
Staying overnight in Quincy, CA was memorable because it was not planned. We had been camping for three days and we wanted a shower and hot meal. Anina breaks out her Lonely Planet book for the Sierra Nevadas and finds out about a funky, 6 room hotel in Quincy. It is a sleepy one horse town with very little going on downtown. We find the hotel. The proprietor is simultaneously running the hotel and a wine bar. She offers us a 2-bedroom suite with a full kitchen for $160.00, a bargain by East Coast standards. We ask her to recommend a place to eat. She tells us that the restaurant across the street has good food and live music on Wednesdays. For the next three hours we got cleaned up and sat on a porch drinking wine and micro brews purchased from the wine bar.
At the restaurant we feasted on burgers and listened to an impromptu jam session that happened to occur there every Wednesday. Musicians just kept coming in. They would sit aound drinking beers and when they wanted to play they would step into the circle. They locked the doors to the restaurant and for two more hours people danced and the music played.
We will never forget the great times that we have had traveling with Dave and Anina. We love you guys. Thanks for the memories.
Mark-
I was your and Dave’s upstairs roommate in Watertown for a brief period in the Fall of 1988. I was a goofy young Deadhead, kind of enrolled at Northeastern but a little adrift, and you two showed me immense generosity and warm friendship and provided me with some of the best tapes I’ll ever own (you introduced me to Cornell ’77!). I am deeply saddened to hear of Dave’s passing but you can add my voice to the chorus of people who were forever changed by passing through his orbit. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to you both.
Cheers,
Adam Blackburn