When they got off on Laura's floor and started walking down the long hallway past room doors, Monty felt like he was a young teen again, about to ask a girl for a date for the first time. He desperately wanted to see this wonderful woman again, but didn't see how their lives, so different in location and lifestyles, would allow for that. Almost in desperation, for he saw that Laura had taken her room entry card from her purse, he stammered, "Did you say that your course here lasted for three days?"

"Yes," Laura said, as she stopped in front of her room door. "I can hardly believe it, but this was just my first day here. I leave on Friday."

"You've probably had enough rodeo, but tomorrow night is Cattleman's Night and they start at 5:30 with a huge Santa Maria barbeque in the arena, and a lot of special events later. You'd probably rather have dinner in one of San Francisco's famous restaurants, but if you don't have any other plans for tomorrow night, I'd be glad to pick you up here and take you to that."

"I assume that a Santa Maria barbeque, whatever that is, isn't just hot dogs on a grill?" questioned Laura.

"Definitely not. Santa Maria is a cowtown a couple of hundred miles south of here, although it's a lot more urban now. The local Lions Club did a fund raiser years ago with a traditional California ranch roundup feast, and now they take that act on the road. Big pieces of top beef, tri-tip cuts, are cooked and basted with special BBQ sauce over a slow oak wood fire, in large portable barbeque trailers. They carve off slices, as many and as thick as you want, then load up the plate with the world's greatest baked beans and a salad made with crisp lettuce and other vegetables which were probably still growing in the field yesterday. It's definitely way more than hot dogs," Monty enthused.

"I've never eaten anything like that, and your description has me salivating already, so yes, I'd love to go. I'm out of class at 4:30 and there's a cocktail party afterwards, but I'd much rather get to see more of the West at the Cow Palace. I'll meet you in the lobby at 5. And thanks again for a really great night, Monty," said Laura sincerely.

She inserted and withdrew the entry card for her room door and opened it with her left hand on the door handle, turning toward Monty. Although they had gotten to know each other in the few hours since they'd met, neither felt that it was time yet for a good-night kiss. So Laura held out her right hand to Monty, and he took it, giving it a slight squeeze as he said, "Thank you for making the night more enjoyable than I'd expected it to be. I'll see you at 5 tomorrow. Goodnight, Laura."




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