{"id":65911,"date":"2016-11-23T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mellzah.com\/?p=65911"},"modified":"2019-06-20T12:20:16","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T19:20:16","slug":"feed-these-bad-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mellzah.com\/index.php\/feed-these-bad-boys\/","title":{"rendered":"Feed These Bad Boys!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On the trip back from southern California, I decided to take the slightly less direct but vastly more scenic pacific coast highway. It was an opportunity to see different sights, try different things, and even though it would make the trip longer, it would feel<\/em> shorter and that’s the important thing. Because as much as I love road trips, those long repeated stretches of sameness can really weigh on me, make me feel more anxious, less patient…all those qualities I don’t<\/em> want to draw out on a long drive. So the pacific coast highway it was, and what an excellent choice it turned out to be.<\/p>\n

My first stop was in the adorable town of Solvang, which has been built to evoke the feeling of a tiny trip to Denmark, with its half-timbered architecture, windmills, and even a replica of the Copenhagen Little Mermaid<\/em> statue. The four sided brass clock standing on the corner of Atterdag road is an antique Ansonia, and the only one of its kind in the world. Sadly, I didn’t get much more than a quick peep at the town and a late lunch at the Fresco Valley Cafe–I sat outside to better soak up the sun, and it seemed like every fly in the greater Solvang area paid me and my sandwich a visit. I have since read that the flies in the area are a huge problem August through October, so if I were to go back, it’d be in the off season while the flies are vacationing elsewhere, because if I’m going to have to twirl my arms around my head every few seconds, I’d better be on ecstasy and at a rave, not trying to eat a fecal matter free sandwich.<\/p>\n

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The most important stop of the day beckoned from the roadside between Solvang and our destination, a bright green sign reading “Ostrichland USA FEED THIS BAD BOY!” What? A new opportunity a mere 733 miles from my last ostrich-based disappointment<\/a> spotted in the same week? This wasn’t merely opportunity or even ostrich-tunity: this was destiny.<\/p>\n

OSTRICH. DESTINY.<\/p>\n

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They do charge an admission fee, but the first bowl of food is free with two adult admissions. When the employee asked how many additional bowls of food we wanted, I told him that the free one would probably suffice.\u00a0 I couldn’t have been more wrong.\u00a0 Up close, ostriches resemble nothing so much as giant deranged muppets, with their long bendy necks, their exaggeratedly large eyelashes, and their beaks hanging agape in anticipation of food. It makes them look half cute and half vacantly stupid. There was simply no way for me to anticipate the utter violence with which they eat. Even the signs that say that ostriches enjoy biting, the feeding instructions that indicate to hang on to the dustpan handle with both hands, and the slogan “feed these bad<\/em> boys” only gave me an inkling of the pellet-based devastation that was about to occur. They absolutely slam<\/em> their heads over the fence and into the bowl, the feed inside disappearing in seconds, some attempting to even rip the bowl away from the feeder.<\/p>\n

Obviously, we needed to buy more pans of food, at least two. They were hungry, they were bad, and they required no fewer than two more pans. They told me this with their pleading gazes and also with their threats of violence if their demands were not met. I was quick to comply.<\/p>\n

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