Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Travelling Man

Everyone at some time has gone to the grocery store and gotten the cart with the one rogue wheel that goes in a different direction from the other three. What you probably have never seen is the team of researchers who steal those carts and take them off to the lab for study. Their job is to clone those mutant wheels in a larger size and attempt to develop a hotel luggage cart with 4 wheels that go in four different directions. So far they have only been able to breed carts with two coordinated wheels and two randomized wheels. These carts have been distributed to every hotel chain in America (except the ritzy ones with bellhops whom you pay to give your luggage a ride on the Lexus of hotel luggage carts).

You might guess that we are on vacation. We have survived the rollicking trip in and out of the elevator and down the hall with two luggage carts in two hotels. We are in California working with Arnold and Maria to solve the budget crisis. Currently we are staying in Carmel, visiting Clint Eastwood.

We spent our honeymoon in Carmel 30 years ago and have returned to see what they have done with the large sums of money we spent back then. They apparently added more galleries. The place is beautiful but it’s hard to imagine living in this town unless you long to spend your final years eating in expensive restaurants and shopping for jewelry, artwork and t-shirts every day. Where do these people buy hardware, Slim-Jims and Slurpees?

But we are tourists and we are having a good time. Highlights of today:
Sat out on our balcony early in the morning watching the fog swirling around over the ocean and listened to the garbage trucks working through the town. But I didn’t mind – I also smelled wood smoke that held the promise of grilled meat.
We went to the beach and I walked in the frigid water.
I parallel parked on a hill in one shot.
We went to the bakery and had giant rugelach nuts and sweet stuff that is wrapped in pastry to make it remarkably similar to pie.

I am writing this in the lobby of our hotel because the internet does not work in our room. Therefore they gave us a big reduction in our rate. In addition our rental car turned out to cost 15% less than we had been quoted originally. We have taken these savings and immediately plowed them back in to the local restaurant industry so that we don’t have to carry the extra weight of the money home with us. When we return in 30 years we will see what they have done with our investment.

While I am in vacation mode, the humor in this blog will be much more relaxed as you can see. Now I’m off to enjoy the day.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Ooh! If you get the chance to swing up to Monterey, go to the English pub-style restaurant: The Crown and Anchor! It's downtown, about a block away from the movie theatre. And soooo good. I can personally vouch for the the prime rib, shepherd's pie and toffy cake dessert. Have fun!

JohnnyB said...

Well, I got your comment too late - after we were already back from Monterey, so we missed out on The Crown and Anchor. But thanks! Any ideas for Santa Barbara?

Jenny said...

John, tell Clint Gavin and I watched Gran Tornio last night and thought it was good.