Hot Tub Trouble

I drove to Santa Barbara this week to pick up my son who had just finished his first year of college. The drive to Santa Barbara from my house is 450 miles. You realistically cannot get there and back again in one day. Unfortunately, this is turning out not to be my favorite drive ever. I think it’s even more difficult than the drive to Los Angeles. Because first, you have to make it through Sacramento and Sacramento traffic, which was at a standstill for some odd reason and added an extra half hour to my journey, and then through the outskirts of Stockton, and then along the deserted parts of I-5, where the most memorable section is passing the Harris Brothers Cattle Ranch, which you can smell from miles away. “You see those cows and it makes you vow to never eat another hamburger again,” my friend said to me the other day, when we talked a little about that drive. And then you turn off I-5 onto Highway 41, which is two lanes for most of it and traveled by slow moving trucks and speedy, stupid drivers who take their lives into their hands by passing both you and the slow moving trucks over double yellow lines, and then Highway 46 and then finally 101 South, which is actually lovely for the most part. That’s when you finally see the ocean for the first time. It would be wonderful if the entire trip was as scenic as that section of 101.

So since it is a two day trip to get to Santa Barbara and home again, it is necessary to spend the night somewhere. Lodging in Santa Barbara is financially prohibitive for us, but if you head north, back toward home a little, you return to the world of more realistic overnight fares. Our motel of choice for our last few trips to my son’s university has been Pea Soup Andersen’s Inn. Sadly, the Pea Soup Andersen’s restaurant that was next door  is “temporarily closed” (although it doesn’t appear to be opening anytime soon). But the folks who run the inn are friendly and the rooms are clean and the beds are comfortable. Plus they have a pool. And a hot tub!

Hot tubs are one of my favorite things.

So after I drove a few hundred miles and made it to UCSB and greeted my son and we cleaned his room and loaded up the car and made our way back to the motel, I was looking forward to soaking in the hot tub.

I put on my swimsuit and tiptoed out and figured out where the entry gate was and maneuvered the latch and then discovered that the hot tub was already full of other guests.

Which shouldn’t have been a problem, because the signs near the hot tub caution folks not to overdo their soaking: fifteen to twenty minutes tops is a lovely amount of time, usually.

So I found a nearby deck chair and put my towel over my legs because the night air was refreshingly chilly and waited.

I noticed that one of the soakers had a little cooler with beer next to him. He leisurely grabbed one, popped it open, and drank. This was maybe not a good sign for me.

There was one woman in the hot tub; the rest were men. Probably five of them. It looked like they all knew each other, one big happy family group.

I waited. I waited.

A few young boys scuttled over from the pool and managed to wedge themselves into the hot tub. The men made room for them, and also for another man, who seemed to be the little guys’ Father.

Now there was one woman, six men, and three little boys in the hot tub. They were fairly squished together.

I noticed that a few of the men got out of the tub and were sitting on the side, dangling their legs in. Maybe they would get up and leave soon? They must have been nearly cooked. Maybe there would be a largescale exodus from the hot tub and then there would be room for me and the little boys and their father and potentially any other motel guests who would like to enjoy a little soak?

There was not.

I sat on my lounge chair for about half an hour and finally gave up and went back to our room.

I have to say that this made me very sad.

If it had been a hot tub full of women, I think I would have gone in. I could have said, “Excuse me; can I squeeze in?” and I am confident that would have been fine. It might also have been fine if I had done that the other night. It didn’t feel like it, though. Because of my gender. Because of how awkward it would have been for me to shoehorn myself in there. A group of beer-drinking men (and one woman who belonged to them somehow) were crowded together in a hot tub. They made room for the little boys and their Dad. But I was a middle aged woman sitting on a lounge chair in my old swimsuit. There wasn’t room for me.