Clint Eastwood was the mayor of Carmel, California from 1986 to 1988, and owns a couple of establishments in town, including the Hog's Breath Inn, which was a stopping point for the wedding party on Friday night following the rehearsal dinner.
I arrived into Carmel, 45 minutes late and got checked into the Hofsas House after driving around it several times. The hotel is sort of secluded and is at the end of the block on San Carlos Street, about five blocks from Ocean Avenue.
There are three driveways to access the parking lot, which sets long a tree-lined area behind the building. One entry is from the south, the other from the north, however the north road is for exit only. The main entry point is off of San Carlos, in which you drive through the garage. It is hard to see, so there is a mirror at the top of the roofed entryway to make sure the road is clear.
After checking in, I headed to my room, number two, which had a view of the outdoor pool. I unpacked, and did a little online checking to catch the results from the IHSA state baseball and softball finals, and also looked into tickets for the Oakland A's. On the team website, I found a ticket for the 15th row, directly behind home plate, for only $48. I held off, and later Friday night, I did some checking on Stub Hub, but that ticket off of the website was the best available, so I snatched it up, and wrote down the confirmation to pick it up at Will Call on Sunday. The A's hosted the Minnesota Twins on Sunday afternoon.
The rehearsal dinner was at Gianni's Pizza in Monterrey. Most of the wedding party was already there when I arrived. The dinner came out about 30 minutes later, and I had a couple slices of cheese pizza and a slice of buffalo chicken. The latter was amazing. After dinner, Quincy and Mallory passed out the wedding gifts. For the guys, it was a cooler, that fits 12 beverages with our initials on the front. A topic of discussion became how we would squeeze them into our suitcases for the flight home.
After dinner, we headed back to Carmel, and gathered at the Hofsas House, before going down to the Hog's Breath Inn. Quincy gave me some wedding notes for the reception on Saturday. I would be the D.J. I had never DJ'ed a wedding, so some nerves began to set in. I was using unfamiliar equipment, which gave me an uneasy feeling. There would be about an hour between the wedding ceremony and the reception, so the plan was to play around and get used to it before guests began to arrive.
Next stop was the Hog's Breath Inn, owned by the legendary Clint Eastwood. This was an amazing set up. From San Carlos Street, you walk into an alley way entrance that takes you to a patio. The patio is situated between the restaurant and the pub, or bar area. There are several tables in this patio area, which stretches around. The pub area is a very small, machine shed-looking building. It is all rustic. Inside, there are photos of the place from the 60's and 70's, including a couple with Eastwood among the crowd.
One topic of talk was the occupancy sign above the door inside. It is a very small area, but the occupancy was listed as 15. After a few conversations about this, I counted the number of seats, which totaled 17. There was a light crowd on hand on the night, but at times there were certainly more than 15.
A group of women in their 30's took a table in the pub. They were celebrating one of their engagements. The woman was getting married in September....in Indonesia. She said they wanted a destination wedding. There honeymoon was combined with the wedding, a trip totalling 69 months, as they would do some world traveling. Yikes, I know what 5 days of traveling runs, I can't imagine what 2,070 days would cost.
Apparently, Eastwood owns another bar in Carmel, a piano bar. Someone mentioned that he makes a trip to that establishment almost once a week. There were no Clint Eastwood sightings in Carmel this weekend.
After a couple hours at the Hog's Breath, we decided to retreat the four blocks back to Brophy's Tavern, which was almost directly across the street from our hotel. It was a locally owned haunt, and we learned this was where the locals hung out. Looking at their prices, I understand why. Domestic beer was $3.00 at Brophy's, while it was $4.50 at the Hog's Breath.
We met Ryan and Liz at Brophy's, who were in town from Sacramento celebrating their anniversary. They were 38 & 39, but looked much younger. She was an accountant, while he was a cop. Telling them, I was planning on going to the A's game on Sunday, the cop warned me that Oakland could be a little sketchy.
There was a large group of people at the only large table in the building. Turns out it was a 20-year high school reunion from Carmel. The Class of 1990 was meeting. Carmel High School's mascot, is the Padres, and the school is located just down Ocean Avenue on Highway 1.
One of the groomsman in the wedding works at Caterpillar and was wearing a jacket with the logo. Ryan wanted the jacket, and wore it for a bit. The bar owner then requested the jacket, and took some scissors and cut the Caterpillar logo out and hung it over the bar. The jacket was not a total loss, as it was seen being worn, with a small hole in the chest where the Caterpillar logo once was.
The two ushers were hanging out on the third floor balcony, and were watching something in the bushes very intently. I stopped and checked it out, as they thought there was a raccoon sleeping in the trash. We watched and studied this for several minutes. Then, some rustling in the bushes. It was a raccoon, and then in the hotel next door, I witnessed another raccoon. Something was thrown in the vicinity of the mysterious "sleeping raccoon", which turned out to be a shadow!
That was an end to a Friday night. Saturday would bring some misadventures, and another reason why it was a great idea to be "Ridin' Solo" on this trip.
Coming Up: Misadventures at Pebble Beach
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