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Santa Barbara – New Year’s Eve

We’ve both decided that Santa Barbara is at the top of our list of favorite places we’ve seen on this trip.   Indeed, that’s why we returned here; for another look.   San Luis Obispo, Port Townsend and Vancouver, B.C. have been major favorites as well.

But, for beauty, weather and an optimal size, it would be very hard to beat Santa Barbara.

This morning, we drove downtown and parked the car and went looking for coffee and a bagel, hopefully, at a sidewalk cafe in the sun.   We we’re disappointed.   We found one right on State Street that was a beautiful white tablecloth affair.   We enjoyed our coffee and bagels in a leisurely manner and took a few photos; one of which I posted on Facebook.

Then we walked down State Street all the way to the harbor where we hadn’t been before.  It was quite beautiful.   The morning’s fog had just receded offshore and half the pier was still enclosed in it’s shroud.  We walked out and were there when the pier came free and the sunlight poured in.  ‘Now’ the meditator reminds him or herself.   ‘Now’ the beauty of the morning said so very unmistakably.

More walking to the west along the shore until we came to the old harbor, the boat moorings and a museum.   A really nice fellow manning the 4th floor observation platform of the museum talked to us and told us about the local area and what we might want to see.

He suggested that we drive the ridge top road above Santa Barbara.   Looking up at the crystal clear mountains in the morning’s sunlight, it seemed like a most excellent idea.

We took a tourist electric bus back to where our car was parked and Colette found the American’s seated around us on the bus most interesting.   One couple bickered about shopping utterly unconscious of the rest of us.   Then the woman of this couple set eye’s on a shirt another woman on the other side of me was wearing and she said that she liked it and these two groups. who didn’t know each other, started up an animated discussion about the shirt, about “Hello Kitty” and the Simpson’s TV show and various other things.

Later, after we were off the bus, Colette laughed and told me that all of these semi-loud and quite unconscious ‘being out there’ behaviors we’d witnessed is exactly the image most New Zealanders (and probably other countys as well) would have of how the archetypical American is in the world.   I laughed as well.  It is so interesting and fun to see yourself through other’s eyes.

We drove to Gelson’s Market (same chain as the one we visited our first day in Los Angeles) on State Street and got some coffee and boxed Sushi and snarfed it and then drove up to the ridge route road.

A beautiful drive and awesome drive.  Perhaps 10 miles or so along the ridge top of the world looking down on one side to the immense sea (mostly covered with fog to the shoreline) and the Channel Islands rising up through it in the far distance.  And, on the other side, the canyons behind the ridge.  Canyons that stretched for miles and miles.

We got down just as dusk was beginning and are now here at our motel writing and preparing to got out for another look at Santa Barbara and a light meal.

This is a beautiful and fitting last day to the year 2011.   It’s been a hard year for me in many ways.   My marriage of 20 years ended, my apartment lost in the February quake and a problem with my heart in June to remind of my mortality and how short life might be and how much I still want to do.   

Wake up, my friends.   Every moment is precious and if you sleep it all away buried in jobs and mortgages chasing the illusive dream of an ultimately unobtainable security, you will have no one to blame but yourselves when they bury you with your dreams unfulfilled and give all the money you saved for your ‘security’ to those who will not appreciate what it took you to save it.

dennis

San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara

A beautiful morning in San Luis Obispo and then off down the coast towards Santa Barbara.   

This time, we decide to cut off Highway 101 and head off into the peninsula where Vandenberg Air Force Base and the city of Lompoc are.

This is another area not unlike the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State or the Invercargill area in the south of New Zealand’ South Island.   Places where no one goes because they are just passing through to some where else.   You have to explicitly want to go to these places because they are off the beaten track and that lends them an interesting sense of charm and isolation that is quite their own.

We passed through a town called Guadalupe, which I’d never heard of.  It looks prosperous and happy.   Most of the people there seem to be of Hispanic origin.    We drove off the main drag and into the suburbs which is our usual M.O. when investigating a new place.  There were a lot of old U.S. ‘muscle’ cars in evidence.   Or, as Colette calls them, ‘cars as big as a tennis court’.

Back on the road, I take a small side route that looks like it will eventually wend its way to Lompoc and pass near Vandenberg AFB.   I explain to Colette that Vandenberg is where the U.S. launches all of its military satellites from while all the manned missions originate in Florida.  She wants to know if this is where the ‘stealth’ planes are but I say that I don’t think so;  I think they might be in a mysterious area referred to as Area 51 over in Nevada.

We pass the entrance to Vandenberg which is quite large and ostentatious.   It makes me remember my days in the military and how, if you were traveling on assignment, you had the right to stop into any AFB and request a bed for the night.   Ah, but that was a long time and several wars ago.

Lompoc appears and we stop at a Safeway for lunch and then walk over to the adjacent Starbucks for some coffee.   I’ve been looking around and I’ve been coming to the conclusion that this town is awash in both military money and in Government retirees.   I can’t point my finger at any one thing but I can just feel it.

I think about my friend, Mike D., who is in Brussels working for NATO as a U.S. government employee.  He’s just on the brink of retirement and wondering, as a single man, where to go and what to do.   I’m thinking he should take a good look at Lompoc.   He’d probably like it a lot.   Better, I’m thinking, than Sacramento where he’s currently thinking to settle (yuk!).

As we look around, Colette and I are both noting how many HUGE vehicles there are.   Monster trucks and SUVs are everywhere.   Most with a single small person driving them.   Environmentalists mock this by calling the women who drive such monster SUVs, “Soccer Moms”, because that’s all they use these tanks for; to take the kids to soccer practice or to go shopping.  American consumerism.

That provokes another conversation about Americans comprising 4% of the world but using 23% or its energy.   As always, the phrase, “No single raindrop thinks it is responsible for the flood” comes to mind.

Off towards Santa Barbara again in the beautiful sunlight.   No one in New Zealand would believe it’s the mid-winter here on the 30th of December.  That’s the equivalent of June 30th in the southern hemisphere.  Tee-shirt weather, put the windows down weather.

We pull into Santa Barbara and decide to stay.  We love this place.   Rooms are more expensive now that we’re on the brink of New Years and everyone’s ready to party.   But, we pony up the money and forget it.   We’re here now, settled, for two nights in a beautiful place.   What’s money for if it is not to buy you these experiences?

We’re a bit confused about where our room is relative to the downtown area.   Downtown is on State Street and our room’s on State Street.  Must be close, right?

We begin walking in the nice late afternoon air.  An hour and 15 minutes later, we arrive downtown.  Whoops!    But, walking is, perhaps, our favorite form of exercise and there’s lots to see and take in when you walk.   So, ok.

The trees downtown are wrapped with holiday lights and pretty and the streets are busy with shoppers and walkers like us.  We wander until we find a nice Irish Bar and restaurant; Dargen’s Irish Restaurant and Pub.  Yum….   A Corona beer for me and a mineral water for Colette and two bowls of nice French Onion Soup and all is right with the world.  Two Irish people in an Irish Pub; what more could anyone want?

Out for another walk through the downtown and the lights and people and then off for the 75 minute walk back to our room.

Good day!

dennis

Santa Cruz to San Luis Obispo.

Rough nite, last night.   I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep.

After some discussion this morning, it was decided to strike for San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria or even Santa Barbara – depending on how far we got before dark. We also decided to take the inner highway 101 route as we’ve already done the slower, coastal route 1 on the way north.  

We have breakfast at the motel and then ride downtown for coffee at Starbucks.

After coffee and back in the room, I spend some time thinking about the fact that we’ve been in a fender-bender earlier with the Budget rent-a-car.   Then I call them to see if my thoughts on how to handle all of that and how to sequence the different parts is OK.   It is so now I know what to do and when and that’s nice.   I’ll turn the car in at LAX with the accident report and then sort out the forms the credit card company needs back in New Zealand a few days later.

We’re free after all this so we pack up and get on the road like we have so many times in these last 50 days or so.   Bummer though.   I forget my 2nd and last A/C wall charger cable and plug in the room.   Now the only way I can charge my iPhone and IPad is in the car.  Ouch!

The drive’s nice.   The inland route is fast.   We make a few stops along the way.   We check out a small town called San Ardo.   Tiny.   Probably put the ‘dunk’ into the term ‘podunk’.   We also stop at one of the California Missions along the way.   It’s small but pretty and monks/friers are still living and working there.

About 4 PM or so, we pull into San Luis Obispo (SLO) and elect to stay there.   This time we look at a map and plan our trip into the town.   Works ever so much better!

The place we stayed before for $69 now wants $99 but will dicker down to $89 but no further.   They say it’s because it’s a high volume time between Xmas and New Years.   Yeah right.   We go directly across the street and get a perfectly fine and equivalent room for $59 with no quibbling.   (When we came in later this evening, the original place across the street still has the ‘vacancy’ sign lit.   We laughed!).

After checking in, we took a walk downtown which is about 10 blocks.   It was our lucky night similar to what happened in Monterey when we were there just over a month ago.   There was a Thursday Night Farmer’s Market being setup.   Cool.

We sat out, in absolutely fine tee-shirt weather, at an outside table at a Japanese Fusion Sushi Restaurant and ate Sushi and people watched.  And the crowds in the street just kept getting bigger as the time wore on.

When we were done eating, the street market was on full bore and we walked up and down digging it three times before we walked home and settled in here after a most excellent day.

dennis

Benicia to Santa Cruz

After our last night at Dave’s place in Benicia, we got up and headed of towards San Jose to meet my friend, Kael, there.   He’s getting into a business where he’s going to need to build three greenhouses for growing herbs and he wants to get together for a visit and to talk about the theory of greenhouse building.

We decided that even though it might be more direct to head straight for San Jose, we’d rather go the longer way around and cross the Golden Gate Bridge once more.  So, we’re off on exactly the same routing we took yesterday with Dave except this time we won’t stop at the Marin Headlands but will, rather, go on over the bridge to the San Francisco side.

It all goes to plan and soon we’re to Highway 101, turned south end then over the bridge and into San Francisco.   We see a lot of the streets and place we walked just a day or two ago when we came in on the BART System.   And, we’re getting a better sense of the layout of the city, itself.   As we drive, I’m keenly watching the signs that indicate that we’re still on Highway 101 South.   These, finally, begin to talk about San Jose and then I’m into following them instead.

As we go, I’m adjusting our plans via instant messaging with Kael as to when we’ll arrive, approximately, and he with letting us know where he wants to meet us.

Kael has us come directly into the new heart of San Jose.  A beautiful new downtown section of three blocks or so built as a walking street.   It’s all pretty high class stuff the likes of which we haven’t seen since Rodeo Drive in early November.

It’s also a bugger to park in and to locate the specific restaurant.   But, eventually, it’s all done and we’re all gathered on a nice sidewalk table in a good Mexican Food Restaurant.   I have Civeche de Pescado and it is excellent!

We talk over a number of subjects including greenhouses and his new business among others.  I give him the notes I’ve written on basic greenhouse construction.   He and his friends, who’ve bought a 5 acre place in the Santa Cruz Mountains, are going to grow Chinese herbs to obliviate the need to import them from China.   They think they’ve got a ‘sure’ market and it sounds like a good plan to me.

After lunch (thanks, Kael!) we buy him a coffee just down the way and talk some more and then he’s off for business meeting in S.F. and we’re off on the road for Santa Cruz where we’ve decided we’re going to stay this evening.

Getting to Santa Cruz is a nice drive.   I enjoy going through the mountains and thinking about Kael’s new venture there.

Once down into Santa Cruz, we find the downtown area and park the car and go walking.  

When we were here before, we saw the downtown busy and full of people, briefly, as we pulled into town and then we checked into a motel and did not return that evening.   In the morning, when it was quiet, we went back and walked around and had a coffee and a look around.

Oddly, as we walk around today in the warm evening and late afternoon light, I find I can remember almost nothing of the first visit and what we saw on the original morning’s walk.   Too many intervening memories and cities?   In truth, I’m wondering if we’ve actually walked through all of this until Colette leads me to the place where we had coffee last time and, suddenly, I recall it.  

Memory’s a scary thing sometimes.   So full of all the stuff you remember and yet you have no idea of how much you might have forgotten.

Just a bit after dark, we depart the downtown area with a vague idea to locate where we stayed before and then find something else (just for a change) in that area.  

I should know by now, after all of our two month’s of adventures, not to go off with a vague plan in the dark in a town I don’t know.   But no … off I go clueless that I am clueless once again.

Later, when we finally get to the original motel and check in out of sheer exhaustion and a good measure of frustration (we abandon the idea of finding a new place), we’ve spent an hour to an hour and a half trying to orient ourselves as we drive around trying to make sense of the maps and the street names.   When we finally can see where we’ve been, I realize we started off from downtown; not three blocks from the motel we ended up in.   Jeez.

Colette and I have never had a fight or even a mild disagreement in our relationship.   But, by the time this adventure’s over, we are both frazzled and stressed out though, thankfully, not taking it out on each other.

I have a lot of trouble sleeping this night and, in the end, she’s awake as well so neither of us can claim a good night’s rest.

I suppose any trip of this length will have a few days that are stressful.   This adventure on the dark and confusing streets of Santa Cruz is probably our best of this category.   Even entering Portland and Bandon Beach in the dark and the rain don’t really hold a candle to it.

Ah well, it is what it is.

dennis

A ride to Sausalito

Today’s our last full day here and we’ve enlisted Dave to go with us on a jaunt over to Sausalito for a look around.

The ride begins foggy and we’re despairing that we’ll see anything but, when we get over onto highway 101 south; heading towards San Francisco and the Golden Gate, it suddenly clears into a beautiful day.

Sausalito’s fun.   We drive around and look at the houseboats and the yachts moored.  Then we go down into the old downtown section to look around and maybe find lunch.   Parking’s tough so we pull into a $5.00 an hour lot and park (a valet parks us, actually).   Once we’re on the sidewalk, Colette notices that all the street parking’s free today.  Yow!   The street’s full to the maximum but still that attendant must be laughing.

The shops are cute and Colette sees an art studio where the artist specializes in shattering glass and then reassembling it over an underneath painting.   And the net effect is quite stunning. www.cassandriablackmore.com

We eat in a small bakery/delicatessen.   Then we drive further north towards the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge and discover that there’s a road that goes around to the other side; to the Marin Headlands.  Yippy!   We’re off exploring.

On the other side are many interesting and scenic roads.  Some look back onto the bridge with huge views.   A ship is exiting the bay and passing under the bridge and that makes me remember my exit this same way in 2003 on the Direct Tui on my way to New Zealand for the first time.   Other roads continue around the the WWII coast/harbor defenses of the time.   The old gun emplacements are still there just as they are in Lyttleton Harbor in Christchurch and up in the Puget Sound area on Whidby Island.   We climb around on them for a bit.   Then we follow yet other roads further around to more military facilities until we, finally, think we’ve seen most of it.

Back onto Highway 101 with a short visit into Tiburon for a look about and then on the road for Dave’s place in Benicia.

Back home, Dave take us out and treats us to a nice Mexican dinner in Benicia.   Very nice.

Then, home again, we watch “The Blue Brothers” which Colette’s not seen.  That was a lot of good fun.

dennis

Boxing Day

26th of December and we decided to go down into San Francisco again.   We’ve got two missions; one to see the art store, Flax, that our friend, Kathy told us about and the other, to return to the FillMore District and further explore the area.

After breakfast at Dave’s, we’re off by car to Concord where we catch the BART to Powell Station in the SF downtown area.

Bart’s a good system; comparable, I think, to the system we saw in Vancouver, B.C.

First, we strike out for Flax, which is at Valencia and Market, by walking down Market.

It’s an interesting walk.   Some rough areas to walk through.   Lot’s of bums and such but it never felt actually dangerous.

Eventually, we reached the store and it turned out be everything that Kathy had said.   A huge art supplies store that has apparently been there since the 1930’s.  Colette shopped for hard-to-find paper materials and I bought a small sketchbook and fine pen which I’ll use in the next few days to prepare sketches of how to construct a greenhouse for my friend, Kael.  We’re going to meet with him in San Jose on December 28th.

After the art store, we struck out for the Fillmore District.  Another interesting walk through some semi-rough neighborhoods.   We struck Fillmore pretty far south of the district we remembered.   We walked Fillmore for a long time going north before we hit the area we remembered.

It was nice; much as we remembered.   We had lunch at a small pizza place, Inferno’s, and then walked up and down the area.  Temptations to buy things were everywhere but we’re being quite wary about this as each of our suitcases home can only weigh 23kg.

After Fillmore, we took another long walk back to Union Square.    That area was fun.   It was thronged with people.   Must have been after-Christmas sales.  Colette and I actually rearranged our bags to hold them in front of us due to the possibility of pickpockets.

We caught the BART back to Concord.   It’s a 30 to 40 minute trip.   Very nice since all I had to do was look out the window and not drive.   Cost was $5.20 USD, if I’m remembering correctly.   Dave says BART can be a rougher experience though on rush-hour regular workdays.   I wouldn’t doubt it.   The Bay Area is a big place with zillions of people.

Back at Dave’s, Colette and I have a small Sushi pack from the local market and some left overs from yesterday’s feast and chat with Dave about his day. An that was another fine day.   No movies to night.

dennis

Christmas Day.

Mellow day all around.   Up about 8 AM to one of Colette’s nice breakfasts of fruit and yogurt, which she made after her morning run.

Then Dave and I kicked around doing various things while Colette prepared our mid-day Christmas meal in advance.

Once that was done, it was still too early to eat so we settled down to watch a film I had called, “When are we going to eat?”.   An hilarious holiday tale of a slightly dysfunctional Jewish family’s gathering.   Funny and highly recommended.

After the movie, we sat down to a most excellent though intentionally light meal a la Colette.   

For openers, we had Miso Soup and Spring Rolls with avocado and crab meat in them.  These were  dipped into a soy sauce and wasabi blend.

Next, we had a bed of rice; both white and wild, over which we placed shrimp cooked up in a chili-Lime hot sauce.   We squeezed limes and sprinkled Cilantro over all this.  And there was a salad made of feta cheese, sliced almonds, sliced strawberries, spinach and a vinaigrette dressing.

Finally, for dessert, we had sliced strawberries, blueberries mixed with low-fat diet cake and yogurt all in a tall glass to be spooned out.

A very pleasant and good for us meal.   Colette and I wanted to go out and enjoy some of the most excellent weather outside and Dave elected to just hang out at home so, after sorting out the dishes, off we went.

We went down to the Benicia State Recreation Area which is a bit west of the central part of Benicia and we took an hour and a half walk out to the point and back.   Very nice.  Lots of folks out trying out their new bicycles and roller skates.

We’re back at Dave’s now.   During the day, we’ve all made contact with our various loved ones to send them our holiday wishes.

Colette’s talking on Skype now with one of her sisters and Dave’s lost in a TV series and I’ve been writing this.  A mellow day and a very nice way to spend Christmas.

Tomorrow, Colette and I are going to retrace our steps into San Francisco on the BART System; similar to how we did it a month ago when we came through here heading north.   We plan to hit an art supplies store and revisit the Fillmore neighborhood.   Beyond that, I think we’ll just let the day unfold.

Merry Christmas to all!

dennis

Quiet times in Benicia on Christmas Eve.

In the afternoon, we two and Dave went for a ride up to the town of Napa for a look around.   It’s another nice wine-country town.   We had lunch at a place by the river and walked about a bit.   I bought myself a hat that says, “Napa – General Store”, that I especially liked.

In the evening, Colette and I bought a package of Sushi and Dave come up with something else and after we all ate, we sat down and watched a movie he’d rented on NetFlick called, “A Christmas Story”, about a boy that wanted a BB Gun for Christmas.   It was a fun Christmas movie and we all enjoyed it.

dennis

Santa Rosa to Benicia, California.

Colette went out for a run in the morning and then when she returned, we packed up and went over to the Starbucks across the parking lot for coffee.   But, they were jammed up ten deep so we bailed on that and drove into downtown Santa Rosa and had a second look around and a cup of coffee.   After coffee, we drove up and down in the old section and checked it out.   Beautiful old houses there.

We dropped into the small town of Cotati next where my friend, Gertraude, lives and dropped a card and a note at her door wishing her a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

From there, we went onto Petaluma and again sought out the old downtown area to explore.   That seems to us to be the part of town that best represents the whole.

We stayed and had a sandwich at a deli and then it was time to scoot over to Dave’s place in Benicia.   I took a quick look at the map services on my iPhone while we were in the deli’s WiFi cloud and then we were off.   And, true to previous experiences, having the route planned made it all so easy.   We drove straight to his house.

Dave lives in a beautiful house in a nice town, Benicia.   It was a pleasure to find him extending a warm welcome to us there.  And the prospect of several days of relaxed ‘downtime’ in the same place is very appealing, as well.

Colette had planned a meal to make on Christmas day before we’d arrived.  So, once settled in, we all went down to Dave’s local market and bought the materials for our Christmas afternoon meal.

After that, it was some laying around, some clothes washing and some visiting.   All good fun. 

And the weather?    Clear and dry.   Mount Diablo, which we all went up in November and couldn’t see anything from the summit because of clouds, was visible in the distance clear as a bell.

dennis

Fort Bragg to Santa Rosa, California.

We’re sitting here in Santa Rosa tonight absorbing the news from New Zealand about the latest series of earthquakes there a few hours ago.   What a bummer.   Everyone has been hoping, since it’s been relatively quiet since last June, that it might all be winding down.  But it doesn’t look like it now.

Colette’s sons, who are both in Christchurch just now, are OK and her house is OK as well so that’s all good.

All this is a bit disconcerting for all concerned.  What a bummer for everyone there with respect to Christmas.   I should think this will put a major crimp in all the last minute shopping. given that it happened on the afternoon of December 23rd, New Zealand time.

My wishes and thoughts are with everyone there.

We arose early this AM and had a good look around Fort Bragg before we took off.  I spent some time looking for a friend of mine, Bruce, from my military days.  He was born and raised there in Fort Bragg.   I didn’t manage to contact him but I think I now have the information to track him down by E-Mail later.   Apparently,  he’s living now in a town north of Fort Bragg called ‘McKinleyville’.

We drove down the coast enjoying the beautiful sea views all along the way.   We came to Mendocino and I remembered my friend, Katy’s, advice that we should look in on a place called Cafe Beaujolais.   We found it but it was closed until later in the morning.   I took a fun photo there, however, under their sign which I’ve posted on Facebook.   Mendocino was a very cool town and we strolled and looked at real estate postings in the real estate office windows.   Always fun to dream.

We drove on south from there until we decided to cross over the coastal mountains as we wanted to stay in or near Santa Rosa.   

We chose to cross on a road called, Skaggs Springs Road.   It was a small and lost sort of road.   Just asphalt – not even a center line for a long ways.   But, it eventually got us over to highway 101 and that fine highway took us down to Santa Rosa where we are currently ensconced in a fine establishment near the south end of town.

And that’s my story today – and I’m sticking to it.

Night all.

dennis