Sherlocking With the Kovacic's at the Don-B-Que
By Don Hobbs

Over the Fourth of July weekend my job kept me on the central coast of California and  my lovely bride, Joyce, flew out and joined me. I picked her up in Santa Barbara and the adventures began. It was her first trip to Santa Barbara so we headed straight to the water front. We had a leisurely lunch and we headed off on our own little Sideways tour of some of the local wineries that were featured in the movie of the same name. We took California 154 and drove right past the fires burning in the hills above Goleta. It was snowing ash and the skies were extremely hazy. Once on the other side of the mountains it was much clearer and easier to breathe. It was a nice diversion.

One of the wineries was the Fess Parker Vineyard. Those of my generation will remember Fess Parker as Davy Crockett in the Disney series. Younger Sherlockians might remember him as Daniel Boone in a later television series. In the movie Sideways, it was in the Fess Parker tasting room where Miles guzzles from the toss bucket after receiving a rejection letter for his novel. Our tour eventually took us back to U.S. 101, taking this route south we headed down to Ventura where our hotel was located. Our room opened right out on to the harbor and at this time we could see fireworks from our room.

On Saturday we drove back to Santa Barbara  to the foothills of Montecito, where we went to a 37 acre estate called Lotusland. The gardens now covering the estate were created by Madame Ganna Walska, who owned the property from 1941 until her death in 1984. Ms. Walska was an opera singer with little success. Her real success came from marring 6 millionaires during her life. This estate featured 16 different gardens, none of which were flower gardens. Ms. Walska did not want to be upstaged by flowers.

Saturday night found us in North Hills, California at the home of Chuck and Athene Kovacic. They had arranged for a real "Don-B-Que" with special guest Joyce. The usual suspects were there for the soiree. June and Ross Kinney; Robert and Maggie Schpak; Chrys and Jerry Kegley along with a cast of thousands turned out for a grillfest produced by Chuck and Athene. It was Joyce's first time to visit and she was in awe of Chuck's recreated sitting room of 221b Baker Street. The evening was a complete success, but one would not expect anything less from our wonderful host and hostess.

Being a Sherlockian has special unspoken codes that should be followed and Chuck and his group of cronies are Sherlockian to the first degree. I have never been  to a party at Chuck and Athene's where I felt anything other than  total warmth and friendship. I tip my deerstalker to our excellent host and hostess.

Happy Collecting!!