Tuesday 10th October - day 21. Santa Barbara to San Diego.
We awoke after spending the night on the side of the road outside Gaviota. It was only a few metres from the main road, so there was a lot of traffic noise, but we slept well despite that.
When the gates opened at 7 we drove on into the State Park, parked by the bridge and watched sunrise on the beach.
We then drove on to vista point, which, as you would expect, had a great sea view, and stopped there to cook breakfast.
From there it was a surprisingly easy drive into the Goleta area of Santa Barbara, where Chris had his meeting at 8.30. We arrived on the nose of 8.30, dropped Chris and drove on into the town. To our delight, parking on Garden Street could not have been easier - a large car park with RV spaces on the seafront, under some trees and next to the information centre. We parked for 12 hours for $20.
Whilst Chris continued work in an Internet cafe, we explored Santa Barbara.
Thus was a pleasant contrast to our last few days of sea and mountains.
Santa Barbara was compact, friendly and very beautiful. We walked on the beaches and along the wooden pier, built in 1872 that forms Stearns Wharf. Sea birds were everywhere - sanderlings and whimbrels to name just two. We then wandered on, past the marina to the harbour, and Harbour Museum, where we took the elevator to the 4th floor to admire views over the harbour and hills surrounding Santa Barbara. We saw several groups of dolphins and an osprey carrying a fish in its claws - it landed on a nearby mast so we had a good view of it trying to eat the fish, whilst being mobbed by other birds.
The second floor of the museum had a very convenient covered outdoor balcony serving icy cold local draft ales. Perfect for watching harbour life and admiring the views and wildlife.
We then walked back to State Street and took the shuttle bus all the way to the top of the main town - about 1.5 miles.
From here we set out to explore the beautiful danish styled town with white painted walls, red pan-tile roofs, fig trees and lots of art galleries and cafes in arcades with tables outside.
Santa Barbara has a Mediterranean climate and the architecture had a marked Moorish or Andalusian style. At 2pm we joined a tour to see the Courthouse and Castle - a very beautiful Spanish styled building with red tiled floors, murals, coloured tiles in red, turquoise and dark blue, huge lamps, spiral staircase and doors large enough to ride a horse through. The docent guide was quite a character by the name of Chuck Winkie (yes, honestly) and he conducted the tour of this historic building wearing a white Stetson decorated with the American flag, a red and black floral Hawaii shirts, tight shirt denim shorts and white sneakers. Unforgettable.
After the tour we retired to Jeannines tea shop in the Spanish styled arcade, sat by a fountain and enjoyed latte with apricot slice and pecan pie. We admired the street art (window cleaner, father and child on a bench) and the cool and peaceful atmosphere.
We then heard from Chris - finally done, after a long and somewhat frustrating day at his laptop and in need of some fresh air! He was on his way to meet us by cab. We walked back down State Street through the Farmers Market. This was amazing - there was fresh flowers, vegetables, fruit, herbs and crafts. We bought nectarines, but were tempted by so much more - fresh ginger roots, enormous avocados, ripe plums...
We met up with Chris at the beach, returned briefly to the RV to change and set off to run along the beach and Sea front. We ran all round the harbour to the promontory, back to Leadbetters Beach and all the way along there to the headland. It was low tide, so we were able to continue along the clean golden sand around the rocky headland towards the late afternoon sun. We swam in the surf (and seaweed) and body surged before getting dressed and running home. The trees above our heads were full of cormorants and the clouds were pink as the sun started to set behind the headland.
We were spoilt for choice in terms of a fish restaurant for dinner. We had many good recommendations! We wandered along the wharf, people watching and admiring the night time views, before returning to the Fishouse - our initial choice - for a well cooked and well served supper of sea bass, sole fillets, salmon and chocolate torte.
Reluctantly we stepped round the corner to the RV at 9pm for our next big drive - deliberately timed to avoid the notorious traffic around Los Angeles. The journey time to San Diego earlier this evening was calculated by google maps to be around 5 hours. When we set off, it was 3 hrs 23 minutes. It actually took four hours, with Bill and Chris taking turns to sleep / drive and we arrived at the Mission Bay RV Park at around 1am, in time for the Security team at the camp ground to check us in. If ever there was a well meaning bunch of men it was the security team at Mission Bay. Their resemblance to Shakespeare’s watch lead by Dogberry and co was uncanny.
Eventually we were satisfactorily parked and had received and signed the requisite pieces of paper so that we could get to sleep in time for Chris to go to work tomorrow!!