The Tourist Thing

Weekenders

One of the things I'm discovering about living here is what it means to live in a tourist town.  Paso Robles is considered a destination vacation for a great many people, mainly from Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as other large cities within a three or four hour drive.  There are also international tourists who stop here from all points on the globe as they travel across California on big vacations.  In short, during spring, summer and fall, it gets busy around here!

Mostly, our tourism comes from the wine business, which means those grapes not only produce delicious wines but also bring cash to area businesses and local government from restaurants, hotels and taxes.  But living in a tourist town is not always easy, I'm telling you.  That's because when you live here, you often find yourself working when the rest of the world seems to be playing.  

On weekends, for instance, the wineries and downtown streets are fairly bustling with out of town guests -- families, groups of women doing "girls' weekends," and of course couples.  And sometimes it's hard to farm, knowing that there's so much fun going on so close by.  Sometimes, in the evenings, we can faintly hear the music from the events held at a winery just to the north of us, and it feels a little like we're missing out on the party, as we sit in our living room watching an episode of "House Hunters" after a long day of working outside.

That's because there's an unwritten law of living in a tourist town: Just because you live in a tourist town, it does not mean you can party all the time.  Well, you can, there are certainly enough parties around to do that, but then you'll never get anything else done. 

Bacchus lives here

The same thing goes for wine drinking.  When you first move here, you wake up every morning astonished that you do, in fact, actually live in WINE COUNTRY (your first incentive of the day to open a bottle and celebrate).  You drive past vineyards on your way to, well, anywhere.  And tasting rooms abound in Paso Robles the way slot machines abound in Vegas -- they are everywhere.  The first time I went to the supermarket here, I saw people wine tasting, in the supermarket ... at 8 a.m. 

Truly, you could drink every day and night here and still never manage to taste all the wonderful wines made in this area, but, when it comes right down to it, you shouldn't, in the same way you shouldn't be at the Factory Store everyday if you happen to live next to the Hershey's Chocolate Plant.  

But, I won't lie, living in this environment is always a tempting proposition.  The compromise we've reached so far is to enjoy downtown on weeknights, when it's mostly locals, and enjoy events at the winery we belong to and, very occasionally at others.  We have to limit ourselves, or we'd just never get any work done.

And if I sound like I'm complaining, I most certainly am not.  It's just that, after living for 20 years in a place where there was never anything going on, living in a place where there's always something happening has been an adjustment, because it involves sometimes just saying "no thanks" and staying home.

And while home is a great place to be, sometimes when I hear that music down the hill, I realize I could get carried away into the Land of Bacchus, the God of Wine, a little too easily.  And it's then I plant my feet on my hill and turn my eyes to the simple bounty of the trees, plants and flowers that come from our own earth.  And open a bottle of wine and celebrate that.