Sunday 24 April 2016

2015-08-16 through 2015-08-19: 4 Legged Beasties

Too much time in the city! We are earthy country folk at heart (well Ewa likes potatoes and they are earthy and I cook them so I think we qualify as Country Affiliated - although I usually use sea salt for cooking so probably we are not Salt of the Earth types).
We pack light though. So I figure we are still Nomads of the World
A compromise has been found. Dude Ranch. Dude used to be an insult in American but skateboarders claimed it and now it means Cool Guy. I am a cool guy because I can cook potatoes; Ewa claims that she only liked me at first because I could make really good fries on Fryday (which was every Friday - Dude! see how damn cool I am? humour and everything).
It looks like a tree but it is a cell phone tower. Now that is a great joke!
I think after the Fries my seduction technique mostly consisted of riding horses (badly) in her general vicinity. The humour of me and PJ arguing and the sight of me passing out on the couch with medicinal booze after riding without stirrups made me an endearing (and persistent) man.
The sign makes it obvious that the time for Road Trip jokes is finished, now it is time for animal poop jokes!
Therefore, logically, we are doing a long weekend type stay at Malibu Ranch. Except we are starting on Sunday because I forgot what days are weekend days. It's okay I also forget when our anniversary / either birthday or anything else special is. It makes me Cool and Spontaneous!
American quarter horses are different to anything I have ridden before. They are happy to just wander around for hours.I don't think they like spontaneous so much.
I only had shorts and sneakers to ride in. Half Arsed / Spontaneous is a question of terms...

My horse in Australia, PJ, was not happy with this long term walking idea as I am a heavy bastard. Mind you PJ had to do a lot of jumping and cantering and other exuberant things. To balance things PJ was quite happy being a total dick to me.
We once spent an entire hour arguing about who was in charge. In the end I learned how to balance the partnership; he does what I want when I am on top of him and he gets to rest his head on me when I am standing near him. Plus I have carrots. I suspect the constant reek of booze and tobacco made it easy for him to remember who the carrot man was.
These horseies didn't know I carry carrots but cowboys smoke so they made an incorrect association and were nice to me.
I think that the PJ learning opportunity meant I could get along with these horsies okay. In Japan there are few horsies close to us so even slow meandering horsies was nice to get back to.
Japan also doesn't have people implementing creative business ideas - like selling door handles shaped like the kanji for "door". All my time in Japan seeing these opportunities has made me into a powerhouse of business ideas. America has businesses, they just need tuning.

Places Review: Malibu Horsies

mapref
http://www.malibududeranch.com/
Horsies, Pretend Cowboys and so on and so on. All good. Some 15 years ago I was in Belgium. They didn't have wireless internet spots anywhere. Not like now in most western countries.
Has Paddocks for Lounging
Oddly enough for a Cowboy place (which has to be the most Western thing ever) there is no internet except in the hotel lobby. Weird. Also annoying if, like me, the way you pay for your lifestyle is by using the internet. Plus phone coverage is spotty.
Has Poop for shovelling
If I was at an actual ranch of working cowboys this wouldn't be an issue but this place is hardly cheap. A few $30 dollar routers would hardly be an extravagance.
But that is just a subset of the people in the world being put out. An even better tuneup for the business is the food.
Cowboy food is awesome! Slow cooked big chunks of meat with beans and such. Easy for a cafeteria type operation (which the food was here).
Has morning cattle drives (best thing here by far - it was awesome, Cows are smarter than stupid supermen at Times Square)
Instead they served individual plates of food that had a faint nod towards Chef Food rather than Cook Food. I am ambivalent about actual chefs, I am sure they make some great food but it doesn't grab me. Cooks on the other hand I love, someone that can cook simple food well is impressive to me every time. A cook trying to be a chef I find underwhelming. In a scenario where the theme is cowboy I just can't see how someone can miss this obvious selling point.
Ghostly John Wayne Is Hungry! He already ate a bear and wants more!! (this is slightly disturbing when working at 0300 in the almost dark, you can see it out of the corner of your eye constantly)
The Americans at the table asking for "this without that and that without this" probably make the individual servings a practical choice. The "I need individualised food" might be a cultural thing I am missing. It seems everyone has to personalise their dishes. I am mildly allergic to fish, I am always embarrassed if I can't finish my plate as it came, even with fish, so maybe it is just a weird psychological hangup I have.
I enjoyed the days we spent here, don't get me wrong. Largely the enjoyment was horse related which I am fairly sure can be done better and cheaper in areas which have even less internet connectivity.
Wouldn't let me try riding bulls though. Probably sensible I guess.
As for charging extras for many activities? I think people paying this much to visit would be happier if they paid a statistical addition to cover what most people want to do rather than find out they have to pay more. That behaviour is one of my least favourite tourist attraction things ever.

Rating: 4/10 (honestly chilli and beans every night would have made it 6)

On our first day the resident puppy wandered into our room, sat down and stared at the bed. I am not sure if he is used to getting On Demand Human Porn or something but we gave him scratches instead.
Come On Humans! Get Busy! Enough Couch Time!
Then when we were sitting in the meadow outside the room relaxing one of the resident squirrels sat down and watched us. Ewa says he wanted food, I suspect he wanted human entertainment but it was bright daylight so I planted snacks for him.

Squirrel!
I guess living in the country and the fresh air and everything wanting human porn might explain country vs city birth rates.

Food and Beverage Review: Yuengling Beer

I think I can be forgiven for ignoring this brand of beer given all my other choices. The US has tons of "craft" beers and I have been merrily sampling my way through them. Yuengling I assumed was a mass market chinese beer from the name and therefore skipped it in favour of beers with puns for names or ridiculous igredients. Yuengling is actually americas oldest brewery or something and the biggest US owned brewery by sales.
The founders name was Jüngling, he was german and had no idea how to anglicise a german name I guess.
It is not a bad beer. In fact after some of the the interesting craft beers I have sampled I didn't mind that it was the only brand available at the ranch.

The bottle claims it is a Traditional Lager. But it has biscuit malts in it and not much in the way of hops. I'd call it a red / vienna lagger. Which just happens to be the style Ewa tended to prefer before we spent too long drinking Japanese lagers.

Rating (7/10: +1 for surprising me by being good)

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