We are back from a glorious weekend in Carmel, Pacific Grove, Monterey and the Carmel Valley area. The weather was perfect, the friends were an absolute joy, the food was tremendous, even our hotel was something both Darla and I really enjoyed. The golf on the other hand was historically bad for me. Darla and I stayed at a little Inn (Sunset Inn) on Asilomar in Pacific Grove that features 6 tri-plexes, all recently remodeled with fireplaces, 40 inch flat screen TVs, wood floors, Italian tile bathrooms and large overstuffed beds. The rooms were not large, but came with a refrigerator and a nice big closet, a window seat to store your belongings and a freshly remodeled look with earth tone colors. We loved it.
I played golf with an agent at his club in Rancho Murieta on Friday morning while Darla went to court for her job. I played relatively well there, shooting an 83. Little did I know what the weekend held in store for me. I bought lunch for the guys and then drove by the office to pick up an Australian bush hat that I had ordered for my head. i have to keep the sun off my ears or I will end up like Evander Holyfield after Mike Tyson finished gnawing on him..or Dad. The hat is wide brimmed and made to be able to roll up and it springs back to it's regular shape. The hat was $55 on line and I am loathe to roll it up, but nice to know I could if I wanted to.
I picked Darla up at 2:30 and we were off to Pacific Grove. The drive over was uneventful, but I pulled over in Santa Nella and had Darla drive the rest of the way. With my Achilles heel injury being on my right foot, it gets painful after long periods sitting in the car with my foot on the gas pedal. We got into Pacific Grove a little before 6:00 PM and then made plans to meet the gang for dinner in Monterey on Alvarado Street. We met, Neil and Lilly, Rick and Jan, and Tim and Sue for dinner. Darla and I shared a salad and each had a bowl of clam chowder for dinner.
Saturday, we were up early and off to breakfast at Toasties in Pacific Grove. Toasties is one of the best breakfast restaurants in the Monterey Bay area and the owner almost gagged when we told her 12, but she was able to accommodate us. Boyd and his wife, Jo, met us for breakfast before we headed into the 17 mile Drive and Poppy Hills. Poppy will close in April for 16 months while they renovate the course, changing several of the holes' layouts and putting in a new irrigation system. The course is 25 years old and the management figures that the system has reached it's useful life. They want to lessen some of the severe doglegs to allow the course to unfold more naturally and they will redesign all greens as well as the clubhouse, restaurant and restrooms. 5 of the holes will be completely changed and all of the holes will have the mounds in the fairways removed and additional waste areas added to the course. I look forward to seeing the changes in 2015. This will be our last shot at poppy until 2015. I did go out with a bang, shooting my highest score in 20 years with a 51+53=104. I even took a 10 on the par 5 9th that I birdied last year. I did have a closest to the pin on number 17, so all was not lost.
Saturday night, we all gathered at Vito's Restaurante in Pacific Grove. Darryl will remember it as we ate there with the gang last year and the boys came up to visit as well. Vito and his ex-wife, Sara, run the restaurant and Sara says Vito is a much better business partner than a husband. I read between the lines on that and gather that he is quite good in the kitchen, but not so much in the bedroom. Vito is about 60 and a body builder. No offense to my Godson, Chris, but I think the steroids have given Vito a tiny peppino. Vito came out and serenaded us with "Volare" and "That's Amore" and we had a great time. There were about 20 of us there Saturday night. Believe it or not, Darla forgot her camera this trip and I am waiting to get pictures from Neil sent to me of the dinner. I did take a few pictures of the two courses on my cell phone (Carmel Valley Ranch and Poppy) which I've included above. Bob Pando came out to play this year and stayed over Saturday night and had dinner with us, which was great. He took a picture of Darla and I with Vito and Sara and completely cut off Darla and my heads. Bob's daughter is a photographer and she didn't apparently learn the craft from Bob. Vicki was in Southern California with the grand kids.
Sunday, Darla and I picked up Boyd at the Lighthouse Lodge next door at 7:30 and we headed off to Carmel Valley to have breakfast with the other golfers at the Black Bear Diner. It is one of our favorite diners and we always eat at the one in Vegas. Alas, the Black Bear in Carmel Valley closed and reopened in Monterey. We had ten people joining us for breakfast and the joint was closed!. We quickly scrambled and found a great little breakfast place on Carmel Valley Road called the Wagon Wheel. We met Bob, Rick, Jan and Tim there and ate before our 9:30 tee time.
I played marginally better on Sunday, but was still struggling with my driver, hitting my first shot out of bounds and my second tee shot into a grove of trees before finishing with a 7 on the par 4. I shot 45 on the front and 48 on the back for a 93, but had to finish birdie -par to manage that feat. It was a difficult weekend on the golf course and I think I need a break. Oh, I'm not going to take one, but I probably need one.
Darla and I left Carmel Valley about 4:30 and stopped for gas in Marina on the way out of town. As I pulled out of the gas station and on to the freeway, I hit the clear trip button on the dash board as I have to track my mileage because the gas gauge is screwy. When I cleared the trip, the entire dashboard went out. The speedometer, lights, RPM and oil, temperature and gas gauges all went dark. We were in fairly heavy traffic and I decided to wait until we got to the 156-Highway 101 split to pull off. We found a little shopping center and I parked outside the Auto Zone parts store to check to see if a fuse had blown. I opened the fuse box in the engine compartment, getting my hands black as I went and found that the fuse was intact. I inspected it, put it back in, started up the car and all of the gauges were working again. We decided to have dinner at a little Chinese food restaurant and I was able to get cleaned up.
We got home at 9 PM after enduring about a 30 minute slowdown on I-5 between Stockton and Sacramento because of a car accident. It was cleared to the side of the road by the time we passed it, but the rubberneckers were still holding things to a crawl. It picked right up once we got past .I had hoped to get the scores in prior to the 9 PM deadline for the GHIN handicapping system, but I missed that deadline. The indexes (handicaps) now change on the 1st and the 15th of each month.
Well, that was our weekend. I will try to get some of Neil and Lilly's pictures added once they are sent along to us. I hope you all had a great weekend and are ready for a good week. Be well and be nice to each other. Ciao.
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