A Day In The Life Of A Cat

Pismo Beach Sucks

Have any of you ever been there? It's like a mini Pacific Beach that is more run down and a lot less to do.

Greg had a whole Valentine's weekend planned for us. He booked a bed and breakfast for the whole weekend and we were to come back Monday. Saturday we were booked to go to a spa and Sunday we were driving up to Hearst Castle and going to a fancy dinner at a place called "Steamers".

I continuely kept getting Pismo Beach and Pebble Beach mixed up, so when people asked where I was going for the weekend I told them Carmel....I had it in my head they were in close proximity to each other. Well anyway, we were no where near Carmel or Pebble Beach. Here's how it unfolded.

Friday we left our house at about 9:30am and headed up Hwy 101.

Pretty drive.

Stopped in Solvang for an hour because we've never been there.

Cute little town.

Around 6pm we get to Pismo Beach and both Greg and I started to get a little nervous because the area didn't look well kept. Old beat up cars parked in front of 30 year old homes with peeling paint and hip high weeds. It seemed like we were in Indiana, not California.....and no sign of the beach at the point. Then, got lost because it was dark and there were no street lights to see the street signs.

Are you picturing this yet? Not even street lights. Oh, and the only stop light on the main road was broken.

We find the bed and breakfast and pull into the gravel parking area. Gravel. Has to get better, I'm thinking to myself. We go in and it's as cold in the house as it is outside ~ maybe colder! The Inn keeper comes down and has on those furry Ugg boots and a big thick sweatshirt. It's clear the heater isn't on.

We are booked to stay in the cottage, so she takes us out back. Folks, this is where Greg and I should have just turned around and left. Problem was, everything was booked up because of the holiday weekend. But back to the "cottage". It was not a cottage....it was a fucking garden shed converted into a "cottage". She opened the door and it was almost too small for the bed....a full size bed...not even a queen bed.

It gets worse.

The heater in the garden shed didn't work. We about froze to death out there. There were two holes in the wall where I think pipes used to go into the shed for water hook-up. You could see clear thru to the back year thru the holes. I'm not kidding. The sprinklers came on twice at night and sprayed the outside of the walls. It was so loud that it woke me up both times.

From the beginning we knew the "private bathroom" wasn't attached. She told Greg it was just outside the room. Private my ass. It was in the back of the kitchen. So we had to go to the main house to use the tiny bathroom and walk back. How can they call this private?

Breakfast. On Saturday morning we go in for breakfast. Keep in mind this is Valentine's Day. We were served scrambled eggs with broccoli. Half of a sliced banana. A big spoonful of salty cream of wheat. And toast. It wasn't even really toasted but it wasn't untosted....somewhere in the middle. And it was cold so better didn't melt. Everything in this place was cold. Greg had to wait for coffee because the coffee in the coffee pot was cold, too.

We packed and left cutting our vacation very short.

They charged us for the entire weekend.....just over $500.00. They knew we were unhappy from the moment we arrived and didn't care. She made no attempt to try and make us more comfortable and actually told us no one had ever made a single complaint. She is lying ~ plain and simple. I can't even call it a vacation. Most of our time was spent in the car driving up there and then back home the next morning.

What do you think...should I write a letter expressing our discontent or just let go of the horrible experience and move on?