Santa Barbara!

Santa Barbara!

 

October 21 – November 11. 2021

 

We found a quiet retreat, nestled in the mountains, 30 minutes outside of Santa Barbara, California to stay for this segment of our trip!  Rancho Oso RV Resort and Campground was our “home, sweet home”! You know how “they” say accidents happen close to home?  Well, although we didn’t have an accident here, it was easy to imagine having one!  The last mile to the campground is down a narrow, winding road. It wouldn’t be that adventurous in a car, but driving our fifth wheel through the tight, rocky curves was a little unnerving.  The campground advises you to arrive after noon and to leave before noon to avoid meeting any oncoming traffic!  It’s really good advice, as there are very few places along the road wide enough for two cars to pass each other, let alone two RVs!  However, the campground is worth the effort, as it is really cute!  It’s a horse ranch combined with a campground.  It even has covered wagons to rent if you forgot to bring your tent!  

 

While we were there, Rancho Oso hosted a Halloween parade, including horse riders whose costumes included characters from The Wizard of Oz, Grease, and a mariachi band.  One horse could even do a little dance!

Rancho Oso also hosted a “Trunk or Treat” for kiddos to come and collect their goodies.  We were all set for Trunk or Treaters, but only a handful of costumed children showed up!  It might have been because our campsite was at the tippy top of the huge hill the campground is located on!  Now we have all this candy to figure out what to do with!  

                                                 

While waiting for the kiddos to arrive for their candies, I got talking to a neighbor, Maxine.  Maxine and Rich are native Californians who have been full time in their RV for a few years, searching for that perfect location to permanently land. It was exciting to learn they actually have their “exit plan” all figured out and will be setting down roots in Hawaii come April!  How cool is that???  In talking to Maxine, she shared that there is a pickleball group that meets every morning at 10:00.  Dick and I were pretty quick on the draw to grab our paddles and pick up a few tips from these veteran players!  Every day it would be a little different mix of players, and meeting so many other people from the campground really made this place feel like home.  

 

It turns out that Maxine and I also share the love for hiking.  Before long, we found ourselves hiking a 2.5 mile hike to a spring-fed waterfall in the park.  In addition, Maxine found the Arroyo Burro trail also leaving from the campground with a little more rigor to it!  It was over 8 miles long, the first three miles gaining 2,000 feet of elevation!  Needless to say, I slowed Maxine down a bit!  It was a great workout that offered beautiful views, especially once the clouds below us cleared!

California’s state flower is the golden poppy, which was prevalent in the campground.  Also prevalent in the hills around the campground were the coyotes.  We would even see them in the campground from time to time.  It certainly made me take care to keep Frankie on a close leash!  

 

Hummingbirds, junkos, house finches, siskins, oak titmouses, and orange-crowned warblers all entertained us at our bird feeders!  I’ve rarely seen as much bird activity as we did here!  It wasn’t unusual to have 5 or 6 hummers battling it out for one of the three perches on the feeder!

 

We made several trips into Santa Barbara during our stay.  What a beautiful area!  We have friends whom we met when we lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa who have since relocated here. It was a ton of fun to reconnect with Ray and Pat!  Our daughters played basketball together during middle school on the Cedar Rapids Panthers AAU team.  We hadn’t seen them since high school graduation parties!  They knew all the great spots to take us to and it was fantastic to get a peek at what living in Santa Barbara looks, tastes and feels like!  We got together with them several times, the first of which was dinner at Mizza located on State Street.  If you are in the area, State Street is a fun shopping area, lined with wonderful restaurants to choose from!

 

Pat and Ray have completely renovated their home in the Mesa neighborhood of Santa Barbara. It has a contemporary flair and perfectly fits their lifestyle!  They have two dogs, Jetta and Izzy, that we took to a privately owned park.  If dogs have a membership at Elings Park, they are free to run and play off leash, socializing with all of the other dogs that come to play!  It was fun to meet some of Pat and Ray’s friends, both human and canine!  The park offers stunning views of the Santa Barbara area.  There was an amazing sculpture, showing some individuals struggling to climb a rock with others providing help and support.  This sculpture was created to represent the struggles of addiction.  It was really powerful.  I have such admiration for anyone who is strong enough to defeat this terrible disease. 

 

For lunch, we went to Shoreline Café.  I’ve never eaten at a restaurant where I literally have my feet in the sand!  Between the views of the shoreline, surfers catching rides on the waves, the sand in my toes, great company of Pat and Ray and the delicious fish tacos, I was pretty sure we were in heaven!

                                                  

it was off to Riverbench Winery, located in the Funk District.  It’s so named due to the former “funky” aroma of what was once the industrial area of town.  Currently, it is filled with cute shops, tasty wineries and delicious restaurants!  At Riverbench, we partook in a wine tasting, in which we could choose five wines to taste.  Along with the wine, our conversation flowed with Pat and Ray.  It was delightful to hear of their transition from being a mid-westerner to having a full and rewarding life here in Santa Barbara.  They certainly are thriving in this new lifestyle!

                                              

For our final get-together, we invited them to our home to get a glimpse of our current lifestyle!  They brought a bottle of sparkling wine to enjoy with the charcuterie board I put together.  Again, the afternoon flew by with great conversations and laughter! 

 

Other sights and sounds we caught while in Santa Barbara included going to Mass at Mission Santa Barbara and touring the grounds.  All of the missions seem to have the basic floor plan, but the colors used in painting Mission Santa Barbara are especially beautiful!  This was the 10^th of the 21 missions built in California and was founded December 4^th, 1786.  

 

Other historic Santa Barbara sites we took in included El Presidio.  This 1782 fort was the last Spanish fortress built in Alta California.  Little remains of the original fort; however, it was interesting to learn of its history and see the little of it that does remain.  

 

Not far from El Presidio is the Santa Barbara Courthouse.  Although the Courthouse itself is closed for touring due to Covid, we were able to tour the historic Courthouse grounds and its beautiful landscaping.  The courthouse is famous for its Spanish-Colonial style architecture and was completed in 1929. 

 

No trip to Santa Barbara is complete without strolling the beach (fog or no fog!) and walking out onto historic Sterns Wharf.  Sterns Wharf is the oldest working wood wharf in California, having been completed in 1872.  Being 2,300 feet long, it also became the longest deep-water pier between LA and San Francisco!  

 

After wandering the historic streets of Santa Barbara, we found ourselves tasting wine at J. Wilkes.  We didn’t want to drink on an empty tummy, so we ordered a charcuterie board to go along with our tastings!  They have a wonderful selection of both red and white wine to choose from!

 

Santa Barbara also provided our Covid booster to us!  It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 8 months since we got our original Covid vaccine.  I have to say, the booster was MUCH easier to get!

 

We did have one day of rain while we were in the area.  California is in such a drought that the rain was more than welcome!  Both in the campground and Santa Barbara area, the rain lasted most of the day and was quite hard at times but not at all destructive.  In the northern areas of California, the system was being called a “bomb cyclone” combined with an “atmospheric river”.   We pretty much just got rain here!  God is so good to us!  The rain did give me an opportunity to pull out my sewing machine and start making a small table covering.  Dick’s cousin’s wife, Kathy (from Gilroy) had motivated me to make a wine-themed table cloth.  She had the cutest table covering to take bring along when we would go visit a winery!  

 

Located about 30 minutes from our campground is Solvang.  Solvang is a Danish community with four windmills, numerous bakeries, and cute shops!  In fact, it was so adorable we found ourselves making several trips here as well!  Of course, we had to try Danish treats from several of the bakeries.  We had delicious slices of almond butter ring and kringle from the Solvang Bakery, shared æbleskiver for the first time from Danish Mill Bakery and, on a third trip to Solvang, we indulged ourselves in an almond bear claw and a strawberry cream cheese danish from Birkholm Bakery!  So scrumptious!  

Solvang has a half-size replica of Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid located on the corner across the street from their Hans Christian Anderson Museum.  For a town with a population of less than 6000, it’s amazing what they have to offer!  Their Wednesday afternoon Farmers’ Market did not disappoint!  In fact, we went back a second time for more plums, dates, greens and fresh pistachios!  The fresh produce is irresistible!

 

Mission Santa Inés in Solvang allowed us the opportunity to attend Mass at yet another mission.  Mission Santa Inés was founded on September 17, 1804 and was the 19^th of the 21 missions built.  Father gave a great homily on Mary’s example of following the Lord in her life and applied it to how we can use Mary as an example for us to follow.   

 

Google helped us find what were the gates to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch!  Jackson’s famous Neverland was located 5 miles north of Los Olivos on Figueroa Mountain Road.  Today, there remain several tributes to Michael, written on the rock wall at the entrance.  Currently, it’s privately owned by some wealthy individual!  We weren’t there long before security showed up.  We left before they had a chance to tell us to leave!  While we were in Solvang, we were told stories by a local resident that when Michael owned it, he would provide for the children in the area to come and enjoy the rides, animals, Disney movies, popcorn… We found it interesting to hear the locals talk fondly of him.  There was so much press coverage regarding scandals and child abuse associated with Neverland.  At least the woman we spoke to seems to continue to love him and the accommodations he made to the area children.

 

Los Olivos is another small town, located a few miles from Solvang.  It’s completely filled with wine tasting rooms!  A total of 32 local vineyards have wine tasting rooms competing for your attention within a five-block area of this town!  It was hard to decide which wine tasting room go to, but we eventually chose to enjoy several wines at Saarloos and Son’s Winery.  Near it is one of the bells marking the El Camino Real route.  Most of the bells are located on Hwy. 101.  I’m wondering if Hwy. 154 was the original El Camino in this area. 

 

Along Hwy. 154 there was an overlook that had beautiful views of the valley and great information on the history of the area.  It talked a bit about the stagecoach route that once was a big part of the transportation through the area.  It made the trip in a stagecoach sound like it was a pretty uncomfortable ride.  Passengers crowded together, feet resting on the luggage, heads hitting the roof on the bumpy road, nausea from the winding roads… We certainly have things cushy today!  

 

Along the route were stagecoach stops offering hot meals and a bed for the night.  One of the original stagecoach stops still exists!  Cold Spring Tavern no longer offers the bed for the night; however, they still serve up a wonderful meal.  We enjoyed dinner at this historic stagecoach stop, famous for keeping things a bit authentic!  This authenticity includes their wild game chili!  Apparently, the meals they served to guests was centered on local game.  My father loved to hunt and I grew up with many dinners made from whatever game Pops caught that day.  Needless to say, I’m very familiar with the taste of game (NOT my liking!).  This chili certainly was delicious, offering not a trace of the gamey taste I remember as a child!  I was glad they omitted that part of the authentic experience.  

 

Driving up Hwy. 154 from Santa Barbara to our campground, we would pass Painted Cave Road.  It definitely piqued our curiosity and before long we found ourselves driving a couple of miles up this super narrow, winding road to Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park.  Anthropologists estimate the paintings date to the 1600’s and earlier!  The cave is protected by a heavy gate but you can still view the paintings from between the bars of the gate.  The meaning of the paintings has been lost.  Researchers speculate some of the imagery has astronomical significance.  

 

This area has so much more to offer than what we had time to see!  We left Santa Barbara looking forward to our next trip here!  For now, it’s off to Soledad Canyon RV Park located outside of Acton, California!