I returned to Goleta last night after two nights in Avila Beach and can say that I’m happy to be away from that mean town. The weather is hotter here. I’m staying at the same hotel where I stayed on the first night.
It’s an awkward hotel room, especially the shower. The showerhead is one of those detachable ones that hangs in the middle of the stall. And it faces the wall. I can’t just stand there and let the hot water hit me. I have to hold the showerhead in one hand and wash myself with the other hand. It’s just as dysfunctional as the shower when I stayed on the first night, which was missing a door, but it’s something that I’ll remember in years to come.
But anyway, I kept eating yesterday. My parents and I ate lunch at a restaurant inside a hotel in Los Olivos, which is a small town off the 101 mostly for wine tasting, but they still have places to eat. All three of us ate flatbreads. Our waiter was a big man with mutton chops. He suggested the specials. Waiters always speak fast when they tell us what the specials are. I can never catch on to what they’re saying. But I did hear the word “artichoke.” My father did, too, so we ordered the artichoke as an appetizer. It was a plate full of small artichoke hearts with some sort of white cheese sprinkled on top of it, with a yellow sauce that I can only describe as tangy–if that’s the right word, but it’s hard to tell.
We then ordered our flatbreads. My mother ordered the Margherita flatbread, which needs no explanation. We all know what a Margherita pizza is: salt, olive oil, mozzarella, tomato sauce. My father ordered the mushroom truffle flatbread. And I ordered something with garlic, mushrooms, pine nuts, tomato sauce, and ricotta cheese. There was no hint of garlic, even though it said garlic on the menu. It didn’t taste as good as their flatbreads, but they still gave me what they couldn’t finish, so I ate it later in the hotel room in Goleta. The flatbreads tasted better cold than they did hot. I wasn’t expecting that.
After lunch, we drove to Chumash and gambled at the Chumash Casino. It’s a fair casino, unlike the casinos in Coachella Valley, where the machines hardly ever hit. At this one, I broke even after playing a machine with the devil involved in it. When the devil shows up in the middle slot, a bunch of free games shows up, and the devil unlocks more money, including bonuses such as the mini bonus, the minor bonus, the major bonus, and the maxi bonus. The major bonus would’ve won me a hundred dollars, while the maxi bonus would’ve won me over a thousand dollars. But that never showed up. I went there with a hundred dollars to gamble with and left with the same amount. It was as if I never even played the slots.
And then I said goodbye to my parents. They’re staying for the rest of the week in Avila (God help them), and I’m driving back to the heat in Palm Springs this afternoon. It was a trip that was frustrating at times, but I got through it.
