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Update: many people ask me about Braggy, the character made famous in this story. He is a real person and lives
in Brisbane, Australia.
Read some
We drove west through the mountains and Braggy bagged his first
bunny rabbit around 3am. We hit the coast just north of Santa Maria and hooked up with Route 101 and followed it north to
San Luis Obispo. By sunrise the word was out among the bunny population that Braggy wasn't taking any prisoners and they were
stepping a little more lively.
Read some more
Names
On the West Coast a lot of the place names are Spanish and we
amused ourselves inventing our own, e.g. El Rancho San Luis Camino Real Beuna Vista del Mar, which
we thought exceptionally funny at the time. I have since discovered that although we were being silly, there were
actually placenames like that only worse. Los Angeles began life as El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Regina de Los Angeles
del Rio Porciuncula (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels by the Little-Portion River) - unlike a lot of
what you're about to read this really is true.
Respectability
Our vehicle of choice for the road trip was a Ford Mustang. This
machine is the same one that Ken and Barbie drive. We'd been upgraded and the rental lady told us that the bigger car
would help us blend in with the locals - after all there's nothing like cubic inches and horsepower for added respectability
in America.
Tap Room
I wandered back to the Hotel Congress and found Braggy in the Tap
Room and sat in the cool dark with him and sipped some beers. The jukebox played Hank Williams and Willie Nelson. The bartender
was a ducky gent named Tiger. The Tap Room is a tiny bar and I remember him announcing to the whole bar in a rather camp voice,
'my doctor tells me I have to lower my cholesterol, but I've heard that song before.' This beautiful girl walked
in by herself and I had just enough courage (read beer) to go up and talk to her. Her name was Claire and she came back and
sat with Braggy and me for a couple of hours and told us about herself. Braggy and I sang along to 'King of the Road' on the
jukebox - doing the Proclaimer's version. I had a five-beer smile on my face along with my best friend and a pretty girl for
company. Throw in a warm night in a desert place that I had dreamed about for a decade and a classic little bar called the
Tap Room and I ask you, what the hell else do you want out of life?
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