The Recovery Room Experience.

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there.

My first outing here in the great Santa Rosa area was tonight. After a much better day on the stepdown unit. I felt up to getting out a little. And when I mean a little I mean a little. Heidi, from Water Valley, Mississippi...not Water Creek...(ooops, sorry heidi), and I made our way down to Cotati, California. Cotati California is the home to the Thursday night market place. Heidi had heard a band play that she wanted to hear again...so we made the long 10 mile treck down to Cotati. With Heidi's GPS system in hand, thank God for those, we eventually made it to the park in central Cotati; after re-routing once....because we were talking and didn't hear the GPS say..."Turn left you stupid girls!" We were laughing thinking that the voice coming from the GPS system is really this lady with a mic up on the sattelite getting a good laugh, "Look, they do what I tell them....lol.....TURN LEFT! HA HA!" During our re-routing we passed this great little hole in the wall called Red's Recovery Room. Being two nurses...we felt it only appropriate that we stop there after the market for a quick beer.

Upon arriving to the "market" we see children on animals, animals in cages, a big jump house, about a dozen tent shades all lined up, and the smell of kettle corn perminating the whole downtown Cotati. We quickly found a parking spot and rushed over to experience our first local market. Well, acutally Heidi had been to one before, but it being my first, I was taking in every little thing. As you can see. We sampled from fresh fruit that was to die for...I'm eating a peach as I type. We sampled about every kind of olive oil at the second tent shade we came upon. We also sampled from some really good gelato!! And of course I had to get me some Kettle Corn (look i'm already talking like Heidi). I love that stuff! Heidi talked me into trying the Indian food booth verses the BBQ food booth. A little frightening....seeming I alreaday had a little bit of an upset stomach. But she insisted I try. So there we sat, eating our Indian food...(and sweating...Did I mention it was 101 here today! Yeah. And Indian food makes you sweat already despite the weather)...and listened to the big band playing in the gazebo. They were great. And the crowd of 20 loved them also. Clapping at the end of every song, cheering for more, and getting it in return. We mosied back down the dozen tent shades they called the market....to retreive our purchases. I stuck to the fresh produce, which was half price by the time we walked back through. It pays to be late....lol. I got some great peaches, nectarines, and other various fruit. Heidi was a sucker to each and every olive oil at the oilve oil stand. After our purchases were complete we were feeling a little thirsty. So we headed to the car, which was parked right in what we were calling bar row. PERFECT! I guess there is a college located in Cotati so this particular location was called the Cotati Crawl. I was surprised to hear the Heidi didn't know what a pub crawl was! Being from Mississippi and all I totally thought that she had ridden horses, and totally knew what a pub crawl was...I found both to be not true tonight. She hadn't ridden a horse until this last year, and didn't know what a pub crawl was. Poor thing. I did share with her that I had been to horse camp as a young teen, and done a few pub crawls back in my Texas days! Anyway. We had a quick drink as we watched the fabulous people of Cotati travel to and fro.

We then decided to head to Red's Recovery Room. As we pull up at Red's Recovery Room we see some of the same people we saw at the previous establishment...always a good sign. As we make our way into Red's, I realize we are in for a treat. We meet..."Marie" I think her names was. Marie was the barmaid...not bartender...barmaid. She was wearing a stunning outfit that conisisted of grey sweatpants, and and a grey Southpark oversized T-shirt. Marie's hair looked like it had had one too many bad perms, and she parted down the middle. She reminded me of Marla Hooch from the movie A League of Their Own....remember her. Marla/Marie was serving us beer tonight. She was very kind to get us two Coors Lights in the bottle, right after she spent about 45 minutes examining our IDs. She was indeed counting the years since Heidi was born....1980 to 2008.....very hard for Marie....without using her toes. This bar was "hotter than a Texas whore house" as per Heidi's description (said completely in her thickest Mississippi acent). There was not one ounce of AC in this little building. The walls were plastered with little bumper stickers, signs with clever sayings, and various liquor signs. As we were bellied up to the bar, we noticed the Kiss t-shirt stapled to the very low ceiling. Right next to the Kiss t-shirt was a cardboard yellow submarine. Great deco. There were about four pool tables which every man in the bar was hovered around. We only could assume by the claps and hand shakes after each game that it was pool league. It was a great variety of people at this establishment. Including the day shift barmaid...Carol...who sat down next to us and was chatting about how she hoped it would cool down for her shift tomorrow. What I will never understand are the bartenders/barmaids who hang out at their place of work even on their days off. I don't get it. But Carol was a great addition. We had a little Oregon State/Stanford football game going on the TV so I was entertained. But as we sat in this bar with stagnant air, we were melting....so it was only one beer for us. As we slipped out the back door, hoping to be un-noticed, a regular said, "only one beer ladies?" We blamed it on the heat...and headed to the car. He did inform us that pool league was pretty much every night, but Sundays was also a good night to be at Red's Recovery Room. What a great place. My stay here in Santa Rosa is nearly complete...lol. All I need now is to taste some wine. LOL.

We called it a night and I am off to bed soon. I hope I painted the picture of Red's Recovery Room well. I really was trying to take in everything so I could relay the image to you all.

Hope all is well. I'll write more tomorrow. I am sure tomorrow will be filled with more exciting news from the hospital...followed up by a trip to "Friday Night Live"...in Cloverdale, CA. Just about 30 min north....live concerts in downtown Cloverdale! Too fun.

Later
-Bev=)