Rachelle and I decided to get out of town for the weekend, so we loaded up the 4Runner and headed for a dog-friendly hotel in Fort Bragg. We stayed at the Emerald Dolphin Inn, which is both a hotel and a bitchi' mini-golf "complex". I'm pretty sure the mini-golf is new since the last time we stayed there. Not quite the Four Seasons, but it was comfortable and they gave us a sheet to cover any furniture (i.e., bed) Lucy would be sleeping on. And we were half a mile away from an off-leash dog beach. All of which made Lucy extremely happy. We've taken her to the lake a lot and she really likes the water there. This was a little different. It was all fun and games until she got hit by a wave. Scary stuff! And she seemed really confused by the salty taste. All in all, though, she seemed to enjoy the whole experience. The North Coast is kind of how I picture California in the 60's and 70's. Lots of unwashed folk and dope smoking. One guy hanging out on the sidewalk in Mendocino actually asked us if we'd be interested in listening to a poem he wrote. Umm, NO. We wandered around looking for a place to grab a quick lunch and moseyed past Mendo Burger. As we walked across the dining patio past 2 people smoking dope at a picnic table I heard one say to the other, "Better go, we've got customers". Both the cook and the counter person were out smoking their "medicine". Didn't give me a lot of confidence in my lunch actually getting "prepared", but I was willing to risk it. The dude who took our order ("Cheech") seemed really confused when I asked for bacon on my burger (it was on the menu). Whatever. Maybe I'll get it, maybe I won't. He wrote down our orders and then called over the chick he'd been smoking with and said, "You figure this out". My hopes for a burger anytime in the near future we dimming considerably. Several very complicated mathematical computations on the calculator later, we paid and hit the patio to wait for our meal. And waited. And waited. We started to think either, A) they'd forgotten why they were cooking the burgers or, B) they got the munchies and decided to eat our lunch themselves. Finally, our meals appeared. And the cook and counter person grabbed the picnic table next to us to finish their "medicine". Good food, good waves and a good second-hand high. God bless the hippies!
