Days 9 and 10 - More Santa Barbara

I'm putting days 9 and 10 together, because day 9 really didn't have much of anything noteworthy happen.  Chuck and I hung out at Chris's place for most of the day, and Chuck went crazy on cleaning the kitchen as a show of appreciation for letting us stay there--and I think to also satisfy his compulsion for cleanliness.  I helped a bit, but the majority of the credit goes to Chuck.  At one point, I went out to get some ingredients and made a small breakfast for us, as well as stopped by Play It Again Sports to find a replacement frisbee for the one I lost at Stafford Lake.  The selection sucked, but I got a disc that will at least be a memento, until I lose it.

Chuck's friend Adrian, or A-Dog as he's known in their circle, was coming up from LA to hang out and spend the night.  We expected him to arrive sometime early in the afternoon and planned to go play a round at Evergreen together.  As it turned out, he didn't arrive until it was getting late, so we effectively spent most of the day just hanging around and twiddling our thumbs.  It wasn't bad though.

That evening we decided to BBQ.  It was, after all, a bit of a reunion for Chuck, Adrian, and Chris.  Chris's roommates also had similar notions (it was a Friday night) after all, and it turned into an impromptu party of sorts.  I will say that it was more pleasant than the majority of the parties I attended when I lived in the area years ago.  We were all older, late 20s to early 30s, and we were all a little nerdy in our own ways.  A much better atmosphere than the Natural Lite fueled, Abercrombie fashion contests I remembered.

We stayed up a little late, but called it a night somewhat early, since we were planning on going to play the course at Lake Casitas in the morning, and Chuck and I both had to pack.

When I'd corresponded with Brian, he said that he was planning on being at Casitas around 10 AM.  Somehow I convinced the guys to motivate early enough and we made it out the door a little after 9.  Lake Casitas is up in the hills near Ojai, where it's notably hotter and drier than the coast.

The road leading to Ojai is a nice twisty road through some quintessential Southern California scenery.  It also was extremely popular with cyclists, as it turns out.  The cyclists meant that we had to take it easy on the throttle.  Most did a good job of staying on the side of the road, well in the realm of safety, but you had to be aware of other traffic that might be swerving around them, into your lane.  And also, there was one cyclist who apparently decided to stop for a breather.  In the middle of the road.  Around a blind turn.  I'm all about sharing the road with cyclists, but dammit, we need to work together on this if they want to stay out of harm's way.

Anyway, we made it to Lake Casitas soon enough, a little before 10.  Casitas is a reservoir, with a campground, fishing, hiking trails, even a little waterpark.  Due to all of that, you have to pay to enter.  I'd only been to Casitas a couple times before, and at the time, it had cost $6 per car.  Well, it seems the times, they've been a-changin'.  The cost was now $15 per vehicle.  Per vehicle.  That meant that even though Chuck and I together took up less space than a car, we had to pay twice as much.  Chuck tried to reason with the lady, but she wasn't having any of it, if you were driving something that ran on gas, it cost $15 to enter, period.  Compared to the $2 it cost us at Stafford, we were not impressed.

But oh well, what else were we going to do?  We paid, and grumbled our way to the parking lot.  Once we parked and transitioned into disc golfing mode, I checked my messages and Brian had texted saying that he was going to be a while.  Chris had to be somewhere in the early afternoon, that he couldn't be late for, so we were on a tight schedule.  I texted Brian and let him know that we'd have to meet up later.

I'd played Casitas once before, which was a couple of weeks after it had been put in the ground as it turned out.  When I'd played before, it was rugged--chest high grass with thistles and rattlesnakes hidden in the midst.  It had since been beaten in a lot more, and the fairways were clean and manageable for the most part.  The water level of the lake had dropped significantly though.  The first hole used to play over a water hazard, but now it was just a dry gulch, the floating bridge lying buckled and obsolete.

A-Dog striking a pose

Chris and Chuck thinking about their next shots

Though we'd gotten a good amount of sun in other parts of our trip, the sun and heat at Casitas was at another level.  I had a hat and sunscreen on, but I could still feel my northern-European-Seattle white skin crisping.  And I was gulping water constantly.

I ended up shooting pretty well, at least by my standards, for playing a casual round and playing the course mostly blind.  I think I ended up +4, a couple strokes being added from me trying to use my newly purchased disc with unfortunate results.

The end of the round though, was more significant than just completing the course.  This was the part of the trip I had been looking forward to the least.  This was the part where Chuck and I would part ways.  Chuck would head south to LA to hang out with A-Dog before going east towards Texas, and I would be turning around to head back north.

Our goodbyes to each other were a bit less ceremonious than I'd anticipated.  Our round had taken a bit of time, and Chris was pressed to make his appointment.  After getting all our gear sorted, there wasn't time for much more than a picture and a bro hug.  Soon enough, Chuck was suited up and on his way out of the parking lot.  I'm not ashamed to say that there was a lump in my throat as I watched him leave.

Hopefully not the last time we'll stand next to each other

I texted Brian, and it looked like they'd just gotten started shortly after we'd finished--good thing we didn't wait.  The tees for Holes 1 and 10 are next to each other, so I told him I'd meet him when they were ready to start the back 9.  I figured I'd hang out at the picnic table (in the shade) and catch up on journaling or something, but that wasn't to be.  A lady sat with me, she was just hanging out while her husband played the course.  She normally would walk with him, but it was too hot for her today.

She was nice enough, but I would have rather been alone with my thoughts.  She had at least 3 or 4 beers while we sat there, and she told me all about the local disc golfers as if I knew them.  I had to remind her several times that I was from Seattle, which she kept interpreting as New Jersey (?).  In any case, she told me that there was some sort of bacterial outbreak or something that had hurt the fish in the lake, and had cut down on the amount of visitors, and that was the reason for the hike in the fees.  That was the one bit of useful information gleaned from that conversation, but she also may not have been the most reliable source.

After what felt like an eternity, a group showed up on the tee for 9.  It was a group of 7 and I had the sinking feeling that that was Brian's group.  It was.

Brian and I said hi to each other, and caught up briefly, he looked good, mostly the same as he had when I'd last seen him, though his hair was buzzed now to compensate for his hairline getting thinner.  He introduced me to all the others in the group, but naturally I didn't remember most of their names.  We played the back 9 of the course and though I wasn't really keeping score, I was shooting better than most in the group.  That always feels good, when you're the stranger on strange land.

We finally finished, everyone was hot and exhausted, me even moreso since I'd played a full round beforehand.  I was glad to be done and was ready to head back to Brian's place (I'd arranged to crash on his floor that night).  He then said that they were gearing up for another round, and hoped that wasn't a problem.  Well, it was a problem, but there wasn't much to be done for it.  I was the guest here, so up for whatever he was.  We sat in the shade for a bit, and I mentally prepared myself for another grueling trudge through the sun cooked hills.

As luck would have it though, Brian got a text from one of his friends, and suddenly the plans changed to meeting back in SB for a round at Evergreen.  Though I'd already had my fill of golf for the day, a round at Evergreen was a lot more feasible.  Oh yes, and take note that I haven't mentioned food at all here--I'd had water and a couple mouthfuls of sunflower seeds, and that was it for the day.

We had to scoot to meet up with Brian's friend in time, so I geared up as quickly as possible and made my way back to SB.  I made it to the course, and they were waiting on me.  One of the posse was another Brian, who was a regular back when I was.  Besides the absence of a mustache, he, like most of SB, was exactly the same.  The round went well, I don't remember the score at all, but it was almost dark by the time we finished.  We finally made our way to Brian's, and then a quick trip to the grocery store so we could BBQ.

Brian lives in a tiny studio apartment, so having 4 people there was a cramped affair.  We had grilled some chicken and heated some beans, and somewhere around 10:30, I was finally able to eat something.  It may not have been the most remarkable chicken I'd ever had, but it certainly hit the spot at that point.

We stayed up late watching various disc golf vids on youtube, and I was nodding off--it had been a VERY long day for me.  Finally around 1:30, we called it a night.  I inflated my air mattress on Brian's floor and promptly passed out.