I swear I'm not trying to upstage you, but I had a somewhat similarly memorable experience about 30 years ago while at a conference at the Santa Barbara Four Seasons Biltmore (the menu and prices at The Grill Royal suggest demographic similarities). A group of us was walking back from dinner and enjoying the bioluminescent phenomenon of the "blue waves" washing onto shore and as we approached the hotel from the beach someone spotted a grand piano visible in their otherwise vacant "Crystal Ballroom." Another guy piped up that he'd like to play that piano so I walked up to a door and it swung open. Voila! Turns out that guy was a trained classical pianist (previously unbeknownst to any of us) and a fourth guy was a frustrated theater geek (an engineer wasting his Performing Arts degree from Northwestern University) who proceeded to belt out opera accompanied by the piano man. We had left the door open so we could hear the sounds of the surf (as well as have an emergency exit point if needed), and it turned out to be one of those insanely memorable spontaneous moments that can only happen the way it does.
And if you had all come back the next day to replicate the experience? It wouldn't work. You cannot plan these things. They are spontaneous. Although I have to say, if you're going to challenge this assumption, the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara is a very good place to do so. You will lose, but you won't regret the intellectual tussle.
Special moment, lucky you!
But that's it. The moment evaporates. You're left with memories and nothing more. And that's...OK.
So true. Nice to have the memory and not be able to report on it!
Love when you are At It Again!
I swear I'm not trying to upstage you, but I had a somewhat similarly memorable experience about 30 years ago while at a conference at the Santa Barbara Four Seasons Biltmore (the menu and prices at The Grill Royal suggest demographic similarities). A group of us was walking back from dinner and enjoying the bioluminescent phenomenon of the "blue waves" washing onto shore and as we approached the hotel from the beach someone spotted a grand piano visible in their otherwise vacant "Crystal Ballroom." Another guy piped up that he'd like to play that piano so I walked up to a door and it swung open. Voila! Turns out that guy was a trained classical pianist (previously unbeknownst to any of us) and a fourth guy was a frustrated theater geek (an engineer wasting his Performing Arts degree from Northwestern University) who proceeded to belt out opera accompanied by the piano man. We had left the door open so we could hear the sounds of the surf (as well as have an emergency exit point if needed), and it turned out to be one of those insanely memorable spontaneous moments that can only happen the way it does.
And if you had all come back the next day to replicate the experience? It wouldn't work. You cannot plan these things. They are spontaneous. Although I have to say, if you're going to challenge this assumption, the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara is a very good place to do so. You will lose, but you won't regret the intellectual tussle.
Brava, Mark!