A Little Road Trip

When we went up to Tehachapi in September for Octoberfest (yeah, I know, Octoberfest is supposed to be in OCTOBER, hello!) and sweated in the hot sun, we picked up a flyer for an Octoberfest that was actually happening in October up in the mountain community of Stallion Springs last Saturday. We decided to drive up in the hopes that their beer lines wouldn't be as long as the ridiculously long ones in Tehachapi and we had never been to Stallion Springs, so it would be an adventure as well.

Before we left I asked Keith if he wanted me to get directions off of the computer but he said, no, he thinks he knows where it is and there is an offramp and sign on the freeway for Stallion Springs.

Which there isn't.

We had to stop at a gas station in Tehachapi for directions.

But, the drive was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately we forgot to bring a camera.

I had no idea that if you turned right while driving through Tehachapi the road would take you through a mountain pass to another valley, a beautiful valley surrounded by tree covered mountains with fields of whatever they grow up there. A rural valley with ranches and farmland and at one end of the valley nestled up against the mountains is the little unincorporated community of Stallion Springs. After you pass the prison.

I've never seen such a well kept little town, most mountain towns have the usual junky yards and old houses, but this town is clean, the houses are new, and the community center where the Octoberfest was being held was quite impressive. The Octoberfest not so much, but they did have bratwurst for Keith and the beer was cheap and the lines were short. A craft show was going on inside the community center with the usual small town crafts, and a bake sale was going on right outside. I couldn't find the advertised pretzels, though, and I just can't eat bratwurst and I was starving since I hadn't eaten lunch in anticipation of a pretzel. I finally found them at the bake sale, but it was the driest hardest pretzel I'd ever eaten, despite it being advertised as baked fresh that morning.

So, half of a dry pretzel eaten and still hungry, we decided to take a little drive down the main road of Stallion Springs and then head back to Tehachapi for some early dinner. Apparently Stallion Springs is a resort type town, with a golf course that meanders through town, and a big resort hotel by the golf course, and an actual covered bridge crossing a pond/creek thing. It really was a pretty town, but we wondered what the people who live there do so that they can afford to live there. Perhaps they all work at the prison or own the farmlands in the valley. It's actually considered part of Tehachapi even though it's a good 15 miles or so outside of Tehachapi proper. And, I'm guessing that they all have to drive into Tehachapi to buy their groceries. Which could be a problem in the winter since it snows there and if it's not snowing it's raining, and all of the roads we drove on to get there had warning signs about being prone to flooding.

Anyway, back to Tehachapi where we went to The Village Grill instead of The Apple Shed because I'm kind of tired of The Apple Shed, but The Village Grill's food was pretty awful, so we should have just gone to The Apple Shed.

That is probably the last road trip we will take for a while, but it was nice to see a part of Kern County that we hadn't seen before, and if I were rich I might even consider living in Stallion Springs, it was that nice.

Terrible Lunch at Golden Corral

On Friday we decided to go out to lunch as part of Keith's birthday/Father's Day weekend. We were driving across town to go look at a patio store to see if they had any hammocks, a patio store that as soon as we walked into we realized that we were way out of our element. A patio set for $2000.00? Um, no.

Anyway, we thought about going to the Burger Depot for lunch, a place we have never been to because it's a long way from the house but we were driving by it on the way to the expensive patio store, and in hindsight we should have gone there. We could have sat in an Amtrack train car for lunch.

But instead we decided to try the new Golden Corral, a buffet restaurant that opened last year and has been doing booming business ever since. We had gone by there once and had actually gotten out of the car and up to the door and then saw the line that reminded me of waiting for a ride at Disneyland and said, no, we'll wait until it's not so crowded. People in Bakersfield had been so eagerly awaiting the grand opening of this place that the local news even did a story on how anxiously people were waiting to strap that old feedbag on. It's an all you can eat place and since Bakersfield is one of the fattest and least healthy cities in the country, it's PERFECT! Eat until you have to be taken out of the restaurant in a wheelbarrow because you can't move? YEAH HOWDY!

Anyway, it's not too bad with only a few people in line, so we get our drinks and pay for our buffet lunch, then go to find a table, most of which are taken, and finally find one right off of the main buffet floor. Where we could look down behind the salad bar and see the not so clean floor.

We grab a plate and start looking around and most of what we see is not real appetizing looking. They have different sections with what is supposed to be mexican food, grill food, your typical cafeteria food, pizza, and seafood. Then across the way is the bakery and a chocolate fountain with some marshmallows and what looks like cubes of cake to dip into it. There was a large variety of food, but lots of the steam table bins were empty and most of the food really didn't look all that good, soggy green beans and mashed potatoes, and salisbury steak, and fried stuff that I wasn't sure what it was.

I got a piece of fried chicken and some potato wedges and then got a plate of salad. The chicken was half raw, the potato wedges very dry, and the salad was well, just salad.

Keith got a variety of things to try, along with some rotisserie chicken that was still bleeding, and some barbecue chicken that was also rather pink inside.

The atmosphere in the place was not real pleasant, very loud and very cafeteria feeling. All we needed was for someone to yell out FOOD FIGHT! The service was slow, too, with me having to go hunt someone down to get refills on our iced teas.

So, now that we've eaten our half cooked chicken, lets try the dessert bar. It was okay, because dessert always tastes good no matter what, but the cookie I tried hadn't been baked long enough. The soft ice cream was good, though. I don't see how anyone could screw up soft ice cream.

So, we were definitely not impressed with Golden Corral and would not ever go there again. The rest of Bakersfield will, though, because it's ALL YOU CAN EAT AND I'M GOING TO EAT UNTIL I BURST!! YEAH!

So, not the best most relaxing lunch we've ever had and a total waste of almost $25.00. Lesson learned, don't go to places that serve buffet style. Ever.