Ordered salmon from our favorite restaurant. $32.

We shared the overcooked small piece of salmon and lukewarm sides. We don’t normally spend money like this, but because it was my birthday, we wanted us to indulge a bit.

I emailed the ”eclectic“ restaurant about our disappointment.

Within two hours we received a genuine response apologizing for our experience and offered us a $50 gift certificate. They also thanked us for contacting them directly instead of writing a google review.

I respect that. Hopefully, we’ll have a better experience next time.

edit: my partner can’t leave the house which is why we had take out and we ate it within 5 min of pickup

I recently found myself in a small mountain town, with a two-block main street, a flat land of meadow surrounded in all directions by the towering Sierra Nevada mountains.

At the end of town there is a petrol station next to a rodeo arena. The sign says, there's a big rodeo every July. As I was pumping gas the morning we were due to leave, a lady on a horse was practicing in the arena. I idly watched her, thinking, "I'm curious to see how rodeo riders train." But then I noticed, she wasn't riding in Western gear. Her horse was wearing English tack, and she carried a long whip. And she was working in tight circles and specific geometries. She was doing dressage in the rodeo arena. I watched her as I finished filling up my car, riding precisely with the big, blue sky and high mountains behind her. And then I went on my way.