Santa Barbara
Liz had a business trip to California so we tagged a trip to Santa Barbara on the back end. It was surprisingly difficult to find a place to stay (places were booked) but we found a great place- Mason Beach Inn. We drove up to Santa Barbara on Thursday evening. Subsequently we found out that the first Amgen Tour of California professional bike race (ala Tour de France) was scheduled to finish stage 5 in Santa Barbara on Friday afternoon and then start stage 6 on Saturday morning. Cool!!
On Friday we took an early walk to downtown Santa Barbara and visited the Court House. Then we took the bus to the Santa Barbara Mission and took a walking tour. We then walked back to downtown and saw a bit more of the Court House. After lunch at the Harbor View restaurant, we took in the finish line of the race, visiting the various tents and mingling with the large crowd. We were able to watch the big screen as the riders crested the summit of their climb in San Marcos Pass and began their descent into Santa Barbara. It was a sprint to the finish with George Hincapie of Discovery Channel finishing first though Floyd Landis maintained his overall lead (and eventually won the race). It is unbelievable how fast they were riding, even after 105 miles. After being out in the sun all day, we enjoyed the pool and hot tub (both heated). Relaxing!!
On Saturday, we got up to watch the start of Stage 6. This time we were able to get a prime spot about 20 feet from the starting line and got a good view of the lead riders from the front. Based on a recommendation from one of Liz’s co-workers, we drove out to La Purisima Mission. We took a short hike up the Via Las Cruces trail to get a good view of the mission. This mission is no longer used as a church and you could really walk through it. We then hit a couple of wineries in the area- Fess Parker and Firestone where we took a short tour. Santa Barbara County is famous for their wineries. In fact, the movie “Sideways” was filmed there and both of these wineries were featured in the movie. We sampled lots of good wines and bought a bottle to take home. We drove back to Santa Barbara and had dinner at Chuck’s Harbor Grill restaurant- a nice, quiet place on the harbor. Well, it was quiet until these six guys sat down. They were really loud- turns out it was one of the Nebraska Powerball winners and five of his brothers. So, we cut them some slack. Another evening in the hot tub ended a great day.
On Sunday we went back to visit the wineries- this time with Gina and her husband Mike. We hit several wineries (Zaca Mesa, Consilience, Beckmen, Brander, and Mosby). Lots of good wines again (all but Beckmen). We came back with six bottles total- a Viognier (Fess Parker), Syrah (Zaca Mesa) , Sangiovese (Mosby) , Traminer (Mosby), Sauvignon Blanc (Brander) and Zinfandel Port (Consilience)- along with wine glasses from our tastings. Thanks to Gina and Mike for touring with us (and to Mike for driving).
Monday was our last day and the first day of bad weather (rainy as opposed to 70 and sunny). We went back to downtown Santa Barbara and toured El Presidio. Following a nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant, we drove back to LA to catch our flight back. We arrived early on Tuesday morning and got back to the house at 2AM where we got a bit of sleep before heading back to work. A great trip!!
See photo gallery for some pictures from our trip.
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March 20th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Hey John and Liz - I loved your pictures from Santa Barbara!!! What awesome pictures of the sunset! Looks like you had a blast! Talk to you soon!
March 20th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Liz took the cool sunset pictures before I arrived in CA. I like the time-lapse nature of the series.