Yesterday my neighbor wanted to go somewhere and do
something. That was as specific as she got and she wanted me to “make a plan”
to do this. English is her fourth or fifth language, and what she meant was
that I should come up with an idea and do the driving to implement it. I knew
it wouldn’t matter what I came up with because she would have something in mind
and she’d politely listen to me and then tell me what we were actually doing as
if I’d suggested it. And that was fine, because no matter where we end up it
involves food and she insists on paying for that food. Give and take.
It turned out that she wanted to basically go for a Sunday
drive on a Saturday. She wanted to enjoy the scenery and specifically talked
about the farms and Black Road. She was clear about that. We’d driven home from
the Guadalupe Dunes one day taking that route and she’d enjoyed it. Okay, so we
headed out. She praised me for the millionth time because I don’t need a map or
the GPS. I replied, for the millionth time, that I’ve lived here for three
years and this is not a big deal. But then she wanted to know why we couldn’t
see the ocean.
You should know that I’ve explained this to her before. More
than once. But again I told her that Vandenberg Air Force Base owns a lot of
the surrounding area and you either have to be south of it or north of it to
get to the ocean. The one exception, which seems to cause my neighbor some
confusion, is Surf Beach. Yes, we can drive down Ocean Avenue to that beach,
but only because VAFB allows us to. And anytime they want they can close the
beach and/or the road. It’s their property and they can do it. Just because. My
friend’s response to this is along the lines of, “I looked at the map and there
are roads that go right by the ocean. And you can get to them from here.”
Because of my background serving in the military and having
to answer people who outranked me and therefore had to be shown respect, and
also years of dealing with the elderly, I completely hid my impatience and
nicely said, “Those roads are on the base. The Air Force owns the land and we
can’t go on the base. I’m not even sure if we could’ve gone on the base back
before 2001. But we definitely can’t now, and the only way to see that part of
the ocean is by taking the train, as the train does run along the coast,
through VAFB property.”
“You can see the ocean from the train?” she asked, with too
much enthusiasm.
“Yes, only from the train.”
“So let’s go on the road next to the train. I saw it on the
map.”
I tried another tack. I mentioned that the base covers over
99,000 acres of land. I pointed out that it’s the third largest base in the
country. I swept my hand back and forth and said, “We’re driving through part
of it right now. Everything you see is owned by them. See those signs that say ‘Warning!
No Trespassing!’? That’s because this is all theirs.”
“We’re on the base property right now?”
Oh, yeah, I could hear the next words out of her mouth
before she uttered them. “Yes, but only because they allow this stretch of road
to be used by the public. They don’t allow us to go to the ocean. It’s not
allowed.”
When this had continued for more minutes than you’d believe
and I’d exhausted every way I could think of to make her believe that it wasn’t
simply a case of me withholding the ocean on purpose, I said, “We’d be shot if
we tried it. Shot.”
Yes, I just made that up. I was desperate.
I then asked how she was enjoying the farm scenery, which I
could’ve sworn was what she originally wanted to see. She made a bit of a “meh”
sound and said she was hungry.
We had arrived in Casmalia by then, and I saw a sign for a
restaurant. The Hitching Post. I asked her if she wanted to go there, or check
out Casmalia, and she hemmed and hawed as I drove past the turn. Then she said,
“Oh, did you want to do that?” Getting something decisive out of her is like
changing your flat tire right after the lug nuts have been tightened by a power
tool. I made a U-turn and we went to see
what Casmalia looked like.
It does not look like a “charming Western town” as I saw it
described after looking it up. It looks like a terribly poor town that time
forgot. All poverty and trash and no charm. But the restaurant was packed. And
they likely weren’t locals patronizing the place, unless the locals spend all
their money on Beemers and Range Rovers rather than roofs.
As we approached the restaurant after having driven as far
down the main street as we could go (there was a gate at the end and a no
trespassing sign and a comment about the base may have been made) and coming
back, I asked if she wanted to eat there. She asked if I wanted to eat there.
I said I asked her first. Since I couldn’t flip a coin while driving, I said
that if there was a parking spot open, we’d stop, and if not, we wouldn’t.
Agreed.
There was a parking spot. As we walked toward the door I
said, “I can’t believe we’re going into a place we didn’t check out online
first.” A man overheard me and said, “You don’t know about this place?” I said
no, that we’d just been driving by, and he said, “I came all the way from
Sacramento for this BBQ.” And that should’ve been enough to turn us around. But
we went in. And the hostess asked if we had reservations. Seriously, the town
is SAD and the exterior of the restaurant is forced old-fashioned quaint, and
she asked if we had reservations. I said no. She seated us anyway.
The place was decorated with “Whoa, partner, aren’t we
western-like” doo-dads, and it was ridiculously loud. So loud that I could read
the menu and laugh at what I saw and no one, including my friend sitting just
across from me, could hear me do so.
While not in my budget, the steak portion of the menu wasn’t
that bad. $29 for the least expensive item, but it included a shrimp cocktail
in addition to salad, bread, coffee and dessert. Prices went up from there with a Filet Mignon
costing $52. But that’s not what I found humor in. My funny bone was first
tickled by a pork chop costing $29. A single pork chop. Please. But then I saw
the lobster tail. Not just any lobster tail, of course. One flown in from
Australia (because, I guess, the local ones aren’t good enough). $66. Yes,
sixty-six dollars for a lobster tail. For that price I want the Aussie guy who
caught it to serve it to me, and dab the melted butter from my lips with his
own.
My friend, who as I said always insists on paying, was
having a mild heart attack. So I attempted to ask her if she’d rather not eat
there. But I quickly realized how futile that was. First, she couldn’t hear me,
and second, she’d only ask what I wanted to do. So when the waiter, Jordan,
came over I told him we were sorry, but we’d have to go, as it was simply too
loud to carry on a conversation. The way I was raised, it’s unseemly to shout
over your meal, but that’s what all the other diners were doing.
Back on the road, we were still way off the beaten track.
And since my friend refused to say where she wanted to go next, I just kept us
on the back road, even though I knew there’d be no other places to eat for a
while. Ornery is as ornery does.
Finally, when she whipped out her phone and used the GPS to
see where we were and how far away food was, I headed back to civilization. We
ended up at the Olive Garden (“Where do you want to eat?” “I don’t know, where
do you want to eat?” “Wherever you like.” “No, wherever you like.” “The Olive
Garden is right there.” “If you recommend it, then it’s fine.” “I’m not
recommending it, just pointing out that it’s there.” “If you say it’s good, we’ll
go there.” “Uncle.”), where our waitress, Jordan, smiled politely as I laughed
at her name.
