Home of the Thirty Dollar Taco

  Here I sit all handicapped. Well, a lot more handicapped then normal. In a physical way, not in the mental way. My left foot is f’ed up.
   My new Teva’s gave me a horribly bloody blister the other day while running through wet mud. It was okay triple bandaged for a few days. Its not okay now.
   Yesterday while running at 26 locks my band aid some how was dislodged and this was about two miles down the trail from the car, which meant running back up the trail two miles. When I realized I lost my bandage we were near the Boy Scout Camp at the end of Cedar Glen Road. The car was parked about half a mile East of the dump on highway 18. Yeah, it was quite a limpy walk back. No fun at all. Yes, I said walk. I tried to run it, but it was just impossible. My foot was killing me. I honestly would have taken off my shoe and walked through the snow if we had been in my car and not Alicia’s, but I don’t think she wanted my bloody muddy feet in her car.
   As much as it kills me, I couldn’t run yesterday. This really sucks for me as it is a gorgeous day up here. Its been in the sixties all week, and its past Thanksgiving!. This is late August weather! Even my cat Zion is enjoying playing in the autumn leaves outside and eating some grass.( and then throwing up said grass, oh the life of a cat!)
   Because running is out for at least one day, although I suspect a couple of days, we used our free time wisely and drove to Los Alamitos Race Track near Los Angeles. Okay if I’m being really specific, near Watt’s and Compton; yes we like to live dangerously!
   Quarter Horse racing!
     The best Carne asada taco’s outside of Mexico!
     Its worth it to face down some gansta’s once in a while, right?
    Okay, let me explain, these are not just any taco’s.
     These are thirty dollar taco’s.
    Well worth it if you ask me.
     I prefer to think of them as thirty dollar taco’s anyway, because to get said taco’s, I tend to lose about thirty dollars on the quarter horses.  Thirty dollar taco’s consist of the most mouth watering carne asada on corn tortillas that taste homemade, plus they have a salsa bar with real authentic Tijuana gonna shit your self later salsa, cabbage, radishes, limes and jalapenos.
    Los Alamito’s is like being inside Tijuana, if Tijuana felt safe and not all gang ridden. Oh and if you added million dollar quarter horses running around a bull ring.
   There is free parking. Its three dollars to get in. The beers are SO cheap. They even have my old fav Alaskan Amber on tap! Plus the tacos, oh those taco’s! We talked about those taco’s for two hours in the car on the way to the track. We mused about the succulent meat on the 210 freeway. As we entered Los Angeles county and got on the 57 freeway we talked about the limey salsa. As we crossed onto the 91 and the area grew worse around us and the ghetto of my old stomping ground (Okay toddling ground, I was one) Norwalk, flew by outside the car windows we raved about the fresh corn tortillas.
     Then we walked threw the glass walled grandstand of Los Al to see the taco stand was closed. Johnny howled in disappointment. No taco’s? We drove two hours for tacos! We could have almost BEEN to Tijuana by now if you know, we didn’t cherish our lives so.
   As the ponies for the fourth race entered the track, Johnny fetched us a pork Chili Verde Burrito. It was okay, just not the glorious taco’s our mouths had been watering for. Then Johnny’s horse won the race and paid almost sixty dollars for a two dollar bet. That helped Johnny feel better, I had to drown my pain in some tortilla chips and an Alaskan Amber.
Alicia and I sent Johnny to get us some more napkins and she started calculating how much she would win if she hit the trifecta for the next race. That’s when I started doing race track math.
    If Johnny has two beers one hundred miles from home on a fifty degree late November day near the beach, how many hours will it be before it is safe to drive back to the mountains at 65 miles an hour?
   We were talking about the answer to the question, when the horse we had all three been playing became loose on the track. Ed, the track announcer shortly noted the horse had jumped the fence and was heading back to the stables. Rather surprising, as last time I checked Quarter Horses were not big into show jumping.
   When Johnny returned with napkins we informed him his horse had decided to take his career elseware and start training for the Grand National, the world’s most famous race over hurdles held in England.