An urban cowboy at Alisal

In my bungalow at the Alisal Ranch. Photo by David Lansing.

I’ve become quite fond of my bungalow at the Alisal Ranch. I like its quirkiness. For instance, there’s no TV but there is wi-fi. No phone but a very nice coffee maker. I’ve got a wood-burning fireplace and every morning an elderly gentleman comes by and asks me if I need a few more pieces of oak. The walls are decorated with poster-sized black and white photos of the cattle operation on the ranch in what looks like the 1950s, and next to the fireplace is a rusty corrugated tin painting of a cowboy on a bucking horse.

This morning, after a breakfast of coffee and huevos rancheros, I took the complimentary Wall Street Journal and went and sat in a plush outdoor chair set up under the shade of a hundred-year-old oak out on the lawn. Guests in their cowboy boots and Western hats filed by, giving me a “Howdy,” on their way to the barn while I sat sipping my coffee and reading about the financial struggles in Greece–every bit the epitome of an urban cowboy.