Santa Barbara

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set off not particularly early to visit the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County - huge new cathedral before heading to Santa Barbara and decided to stop off at Venice beach to see what the fuss was about.
Managed to find an parking spot without having to pay - no mean feat.
Then spotted a load of electric scooters lying about in the side of the road - so we had to didn’t we!

20 minutes later we had sorted the app out and we’re off along the side street and promenade at almost 7 miles per hour on our scooters - great fun shooting along and covered a lot of ground pretty quickly along the beach before heading back and walking along the canals - not quite like the Italian version.

After lunch we then carried on up and as is her want. Sue had identified a number of spots she wanted to go to along the way - but I managed to miss them all except for Mussel Shoala, a small community off the highway with a fantastic and isolated beach front to what looked like small holiday let’s. If you are thinking of staying in the area and have a car to get to other spots it’s worth a look.

We hit Santa Barbara late afternoon. It’s strange though. There is nothing exceptional about the town however once you have walked along the beach for miles, found Butterfly Cove, sampled the food and beer(s) you find yourself relaxing into the vibe and just not wanting to leave.

We found a really good Mexican place which we went to twice and it’s both cheap and good - Mony’s taqueria Mexican food.

Santa Barbara also has one of the oldest missions on the west coast set up initially to convert the native Americans to Christianity it also aerved as a staging post for priests as they came down the coast - well worth a visit.

If you like wine there are plenty of options to taste the local wines and good news instead of making you drive to the vineyards they came to town and you can walk them - even if not too steadily -hic! And they are more like craft beer places so no snobbery involved - check out Area 5.1 so named cos owners birthday is May 1st and because Area 51 would get too many website hits from geeks.
Mind you with wines called White light, Close encounter, Rosewell, Collusion, Conspiracy red and Celestial maybe geeks and nerds should visit.

Great place to wander and relax ( and as it happens get haircut cheaply)

Off to the airport to head to Nashville next - catch up soon
Yeehaw

PS At last Sue has got some images up on her website which she will continue to add to.....http://slrphotographic.co.uk/gallery_739252.html ‘Around the World without a Selfie Stick’ - check it out!

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Comments

[Mark Robinson]

Keep the blogs coming!
Hi Rich - really enjoying the blogs. Good to read a travel blog that does what it says on the tin - describes the travel day in chronological order with absolutely nothing about how you are feeling! Perfect for us blokes. It seems you have packed a huge amount into your journey so far - keep having fun!

[Richardandsue]

Blokes
Hi Mark good to hear from you and thanks - have deliberately not let Sue manage this just wanted a brief record of stuff I was interested in or did and too lazy to add flowery detail - van’t See me changing much Hope all well R

[Paula Baker]

Sue Supporter
Definitely well written and factual yet I hear the odd Sue influence breaking through. Glad you are enjoying normal life alongside fun stuff. Looking forward to hearing more. Safe travels ?