RAMONA - TURKEY TOWN

RAMONA - TURKEY TOWN

As I woke up at dawn to get on the road and get up to my next list of things to do, I drove out of Ramona, this small town in the middle of no where felt a little romantic. Could it have been the wedding I was just at the night before filling my mind with such ideas of romanticizing this small time, at your own pace town? I could see the dawn mist hover around the mountains around me and the roads were still kissed with the mist of the night's rain.

I kept hearing that this town was the capital of roaming wild Turkey's. I just thought they meant that there was a lot of consumption of Wild Turkey in the place, which I would have easily believed without any proof needed. But they had a giant pin up mural of Ms. Turkey who was riding on one with a vintage look. But I finally believed these statements when I was driving out of town in the early hours with the sun just rising when I saw a group of about 20 Turkey's just walking along the highway.

I got into the small few block town not to soon after that and it was quiet. Not a soul to see, which just added a bit more romance to the whole thing. But in that moment I then remembered the past two days I spent here and how backwards as fuck it was and booked it the fuck out of dodge.

Let's back up here. On Friday when I got into town, the small "Turkey Inn" seemed like the go to bar to go. Some place all the locals drink.. and fight in. Walking in, yeah, pretty much assured that. There was a picture of our President Trump hanging right there behind the bar. Not to abnormal, since he is our President. But it was one of him not taken at the white house, nope, it was from his time on the Apprentice.

They jumped on this wagon long before anyone else, clearly. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised. While California has a lot of liberal and democratic swinging areas, it does have a great big inland make up of hard red republicans. This area is sure as hell one of them. On the tv's was playing two feeds of Fox news, George Bush Sr. had just passed away and sure as shit we were going to hear about it as much as possible. I swear the bar had a different attitude that one of their finest had fallen. It made drinking the jack and coke, which oddly enough, they didn't have Jack Daniels, so it was Jim and coke, I guess, still made drinking that stiff drink poured by the pint sized waitress even more important.

Oh how about the fact that there's like, literally, all dirt roads in Ramona. How about begging ol' Trump for some money for some infrastructure. Anyhow, the place was the type of town where someone gets murdered and everyone just sort of glosses it over and tells you to best forget about it and keep going on with your day or else there's going to be trouble. The usual Saturday night special sort of norm.

I don't know where I'm going with this. Just sharing an experience. Sleepy towns are often nice to look at and be in for a few hours to a day, but anymore and the locals get restless and just act like white blood cels attacking even any good foreign object in their body. So yeah, run. RUN! HOLY SHIT, THEY GOT THE TORCHES AND PITCH FORKS, RUNNNNNNNN!!!!