WCT 2.2: final two days

 Hey, Readers!

Been busy, but here’s your catchup (not mustard) on our last two days; KG is waiting at his gate to fly back to Houston. 🥲

Remember, this was a golf trip.  So, this will be golf or golf adjacent heavy. Read at your risk. And, yes, we had a couple good meals, but didn’t win food porn awards (this is such a thing) for this trip.

We ate breakfast yday morning again at Roy’s in the Inn at Spanish Bay.  We never saw Roy in 3 meals there.  He had the chorizo breakfast burrito again, so no need for picture. I had the basic breakfast.  They HAD white bread for toast!!!

Then to golf.  We were paired with two guys named Chi, Jay and Cho; the foursome behind us was their wives and other family members.  They didn’t chatter much, except at one point to ask if KG was a pro or something.  He birdied the first hole, birdied the last hole, and in between, in surely the shot of the week, holed out from 110 yards at 11 for an eagle.  Ironically (my English prof friends can discuss whether this is accurate use) he AND his caddie stopped watching the ball as it rolled off the slope and I was the only one to see it go in! 🤣 It disappeared and I yelled “it went in” because it so rarely happens.  Close, yes, but in, almost never. 

Golfing with strangers and a caddie is almost always a “blog worthy” as there’s always something.  KG’s caddy, Crawford, started the day by saying to me “I guess you root for Notre Dame and IU” — I was wearing a Purdue hat (and have a P for Purdue club head cover).  Grrrr.  Then he turns to me on number 16 and says “what’s under the Purdue cover” and I tell him and he says “you haven’t hit it all day and it’s saying it wants to feel the sunshine at Spanish Bay and hit some shots.”  So I hit it.  He was that kind of guy. 

Then there were Jay and Cho.  They weren’t terrible, but they struggled, particularly as they almost every hole had one of their balls lost or in a shrub, etc.  

But the highlight was the par 5 14th which is straight down to the ocean.  Here’s the visual: 

We hit down the middle and are standing there some distance out, all five of us waiting on the group in front of us to clear the green and all of the sudden Crawford says “what’s he doing?!?!!?” I thought Cho, who was first in line to play, had hit to the green too early. 

NO!  Cho had hit off to a 90 degree angle.  Crawford said “he’s hit at 18!”  “Wrong hole” Crawford yells.  I almost die laughing because there’s an old golf joke with that as the punch line.  Cho is like, what, isn’t that the right way? We point to the four on the green, you’d think right in front of us…and he’s embarrassed and ends up hitting again.  ACC to KG, he asked “should I go get that ball” and KG said “sometimes if they don’t notice it’s best to just leave it.”  🤣

We really enjoyed the course — here’s my money shot — and KG played even better than the first day, which was fun to watch (if you’re asking, I just suck 🥲)

We were done about 245 and wanted to have dinner at Spanish Bay.  But we found out they didn’t open till 530.  What to do?  This is the eternal dilemma.  We ended up ordering chicken nachos (no pic) to go with our post-round drinks ‘to tie us over.”  We killed the two hours, then I wasn’t hungry.  Neither was KG.  So we shot off through the dark to Santa Cruz.

Okay, now for the travel section of this blog :)  Initially, we booked the two days and two nights at Spanish Bay and Pebble Beach because they had a 2-night minimum opening (most of the time it’s a 3-night minimum).  Then, as Steve-the-travel-agent made flight arrangements, we talked about what else to do.  San Fran, yes.  KG wanted to play Pasatiempo, which is in Santa Cruz, about halfway between Spanish Bay and San Fran.  But it was a bit pricey (not that that has slowed us much), and they didn’t have tee times that quite fit.  KG didn’t really want to fly in Monday morning, race down there, play, etc.  He got up a 4 Monday, anyway, and you never count on planes being on time these days.  So we gave up that idea.  Also, he didn’t want to be off work any longer. 

Well, Tuesday night after dinner, or at dinner, he’s got the fever.  😃 He’s been off two days, played golf well on one of the world’s great courses, the weather is unbelievable and…so we agree to ask if we could play one of their 3 courses Thursday morning.   This would be one of those embarrassing sit coms if there was tape, as we went to the concierge desk and KG opened with”I’m going to be that guy” 🤣. But they don’t have a tee times early enough so he can make his 410 flight home. 

His shoulders slump and we go back to the room.  I’m working on the blog and he says “hey!”  Suddenly there’s an 8 am tee time For TWO (not 4), Thursday morning.  We do the math.  We ignore the cost.  🤣

We figure out that I can change where my clubs are getting shipped from.  K tells us to eat our prepaid hotel room in San Fran for Wednesday night (and hour and 15 minute drive BACK) and get another room. 

We book the tee time. 

And we’re back at the concierge desk asking to print out my ship sticks label — not from their place.  Madyson, then Krysten, were very helpful.  Because then nothing worked.  How don’t know how many people handled my phone trying to get a copy of the mailing label from my phone to them.  Email?  Not working.  Uploading files?  The WiFi kept going crunchy (it was KG’s one complaint about the place) and…finally, Krysten pulled out the concierge desk’s iPhone and we were able to airdrop it from me to it.  And it printed it off!!! It took 20 minutes, the whole time with KG “chatting” to the 3 people there in various combos. K’s kid 😂

We had dinner in Santa Cruz last night, a place called Laila, Mediterranean, which might have been the worst meal of the week (it’s a high bar) —

It’s arugula pesto pasta with chicken.  We both had the same thing.  I had heartburn and nightmares from the garlic on garlic :)

So, here we were today, up at 6 AM to get to Pasa and eat, warmup, shop (I love their logo

We played today with two members - Len, who was older than dirt, and Austin, who was (don’t let this hurt) 14.  Len said he’d been playing there since 1955.  Austin has been playing golf just two years.  Both could play some — Austin with the smoothness of youth.  He was almost my height and might have weighed 120.  And lived off the 3rd tee.  KG was saying “I used to roll out at 730 for 8 o’clock with no warmup”…KG was feeling the first two days today. 😂

I lost every golf ball I had on  the front nine, but no one else did anything as funny as hitting to the wrong hole 😂 

We played faster than either of the first two days and I birdied the last hole (after 3 days of sucking), so I go home feeling good about golf :). It was a magnificent golf course, but not my preferred cup of tea — there was no ocean except from AFAR at the top of the property.   Supposedly, we could see Spanish Bay from 40 miles away. 

And then off to SFO.  About an hour ride.  KG got there almost exactly 2 hours before his flight, Pasa took my clubs like they knew what to do with them, and all has worked out.  

I go home tomorrow morning via Charlotte to Wilkes/Barre Scranton airport. 

We are all sad (I think including K) — it was so great and now we have to go back to work or to snow and cold 😡

And we’re not sure about our next trip.  There’ve been several suggestions….but we’ll see whether K prefers beach or basketball 😂

Till next time, hope you’ve enjoyed it — and shout out to James. :)

WCT 2.1: first two days

 [reminder: wCt is West Coast Trip]

We’re done with 2 days of 4 in NoCal.

KG arrived “early” Monday morning and we spent the day doing SF and environs.  More on that later. 

But this is a golf trip, so we’ll start with today. 

We played Pebble Beach, which is my retirement “gift” (what it has been designated has been a moving target — birthday present? Waste of money? 😁)

We were told it might be the best weather day of the year.  It was sunny, not windy and got to 75. It was actually hot.  The locals were complaining about the heat. ROFL. 

One of the famous holes there is #7, which this picture shows you the day and the awesome setting for the little hole. 

We had a great time.  Our partners, Lea and Kevin, from Mammoth, were congenital and good players.  Our caddie, Tito, was good, too.  He was quite a character, having surf bummed for 17 years in Maui and generally been around.  He also had a recent knee replacement.  Said he sat around and ate ice cream.  A man after my heart. :)

Here we are on the 18th tee. 

Going back (and this is a quick run-through, John): I picked KG up at 10 and he was hungry.  He found a place and directed me to — the produce terminal for San Bruno. 🤣 we found another place not far away that was much better.  But the line of the day was “what kind of toast do you want” and KG said “white” and the guy said “we don’t have white toast.”  What??!?!!?!?  California.  They did have sour dough, which I guess isn’t what they consider white bread.  Huh. 

Then he wanted to see the redwoods, so we shot across (okay, the rental is a Toyota Corolla so “shot” is a lie”) the Golden Gate Bridge, grabbed pictures at the vista point there (hence) and saw the redwoods.  They were open despite the shutdown because they are a special designation (I was told).

Then in to San Fran. We had a Ghirardelli Sundae for “lunch”, then took the cable car up to Lombard St.  In an heroic effort, I walked about 2/3 of the way down Lombard St AND back up!!! My heart rate did not go down for about an hour. :)

Cable car down to turnaround and walked over to the sea lions

Then we drove up to Coit Tower (yes, we hit a lot of the city’s greatest hits in a day) and he went up in in (I do neither heights nor steps at this point).

Requisite pic from there:

Then down to the Embarcadero and dinner. 

Food porn coming. 

We had tiger prawns from prelim

And he had the locally caught spring trout:

I had the chowder, but, in a long and involved story, I ended up getting it comped because…well, the wait person said “we had an error of communications.”

Then we drove to Monterey, where we are staying at the Inn at Spanish Bay.  It might be the nicest room I’ve ever had — they have free snacks!!! And robes.  And both a tub and shower.  And turn down service. 

The food here is great too. 

We had breakfast burritos for breakfast.  

We had dinner reservations here in the INN, too.  It’s called Roy’s.  It’s won James Beard awards.  It’s Hawaiian fusion cuisine (so says the promos). 

We had the tiger prawns (a theme of the trip) and beef spring rolls 

I had the roasted chicken with red curry. 

KG had the surf and turf which was swordfish with spare ribs. (Hawaiian fusion, right?)

And he had to have the mango cheesecake for dessert.  That’s a mango gel layer.  He loves cheesecake and he said it was great. 

Worth noting is part of the charm of the place is they knew it was our birthday.  There were birthday cards in the room when we checked in and the desk people have all said happy birthday “to both of you”, including today as we checked in at the golf course.  

Been a good trip so far.  Here’s our SOP shot on 18th tee box — this was facing away from the the lodge and 18th green.  You can see the scenery and how lovely the day was. 

Also, part of the charm, there’s a deck to watch golf facing west to the ocean (which is right there) and each evening a bag piper pipes the sun down.  We have video…Okay, I’ll put it here.