Nothing that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt anyway. I’m back. Tanya and I had a great time up in Cambria, but now the vacation is over and it’s time for me to get back to doing absolutely nothing.
Thus, this post. Vacations always make me lazy, more so than usual. So, of course I have no vacation photos to share with you at this time. Maybe I’ll post some tomorrow. In the mean time, I’ll just share some recollections about the trip. Kind of like a slide show…without slides. All the excitement with none of the interest.
It rained like hell on the way up to Cambria. Luckily, that was the only rain we saw. The rest of the trip was drier than a Noel Coward play. And very sunny. While in Cambria we decided to take a visit to the Hearst Castle. Actually, it’s the other way around, but I don’t want to seem like a Hearst Castle geek. I would much rather like to seem like a small town antiquing geek.
And a Noel Coward geek.
The Hearst Castle was nice as always. It says “hi.” We went on a couple tours. They were nice. They say “hi.” We went to the beach. It was also nice. It says “eat crap and die.”
The beach doesn’t like you very much. Sorry.
After hanging out in a quite nice motel room for a couple days watching cable television, rising from the couch occasionally to tour an old house, walk on the beach or go eat something, we headed back home.
Since it was raining on the way up to Cambria, we had to forgo our side trip to Solvang. It’s a little Dutch-type town in the heart of wine country. We did however get to eat at a McDonalds in Buellton (no we didn’t get the damned split pea soup! Only in nowhere California can split pea soup become a tourist trap.).
Everyone said, “oh, you have to stop in Solvang…it’s charming.” Well, Solvang wasn’t charming. It was crowded. That’s the down-side of nice weather. It brings out everyone under 10 and over 60. But I could see how it might be charming if it weren’t so damned packed with lookie-loos.
But here’s how stupid I am. As if you needed more proof. We’re driving around Buellton and Solvang and I’m thinking “didn’t they shoot Sideways around here somewhere?” Then I saw the Hitching Post II and I thought to myself, “they had a Hitching Post II in Sideways…” Then I saw a Days Inn with a big windmill attached to it and finally put it together, “hey, they might have shot Sideways here!”
Well, they did shoot Sideways there. The Sideways Wine Tours should have given it away. But I’m not very bright. In fact, I only know that they shot the movie there now because they did a little article on it in Westways which I read when we got back.
I really liked Sideways, but evidently, so did the throngs of geriatrics that dampened my visit to a Dutch-themed tourist trap. Movies are ruining the world. But wine-snobbery probably saved me a couple bucks the other day when I refused to get out of my car and set foot into one single Solvang antique shop.
But I’m back here in the reality of Los Angeles. I can finally get a break from all those movie tourists.
Fun Fact: My rub with Oscar greatness isn’t limited to Living in LA or driving through wine country. Last year I was cast in a play. In the play with me was a guy named Matt. His dad had a nice big house, and was out of town, so we held rehearsals at his place. Turns out that Matt’s dad was out of town because he was in Louisiana producing Ray.
So I got to hang out at the house of a man who was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar last night.
And he has no idea.
Matt was also in the movie, but he wasn’t nominated for anything. Too bad they don’t have a “best fake slide guitar playing” category. He would have been a shoe-in.
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