We went to Santa Barbara for Valentine's Day! We just stayed overnight - it's not a very far drive so it's a great weekend getaway. We got up early on Saturday, packed up the car and the dog, and got on our way.
Neil forgot his wedding ring, so we had to go back for it. This is Neil getting back in the car! He says not everyone can pull off a badass motorcycle shirt and plaid shorts the way he can.
So, we got back on the road and made our way up to Santa Barbara. It was too early to check in, so we stopped at a little roadside market and got some food for brunch. They had little fresh-baked pies that looked too good to pass up, so we bought the blackberry rhubarb. Unfortunately the only utensils they had were chopsticks. And while Neil doubted my chopstick-pie-eating abilities at first, it didn't take him long to steal my technique.
No shame...!
Then we explored a little bit... we walked around looking at some of the cool old adobe buildings, and made our way to State Street to look at the neat shops. Oh, and look at Neil's glorious beard!!!
So then we decided to ride bikes (Carmen lent me hers... thank you!!). With Sparky. Now, while we think our dog is pretty awesome, we know he's not very bave and new things freak him out. You'd think that knowing this, we would have maybe practiced bike riding with the dog beforehand, but we're not really like that. We like to learn the hard way, from experience!
So we rode out to the pier, and almost died a lot because Sparky kept running in front of the bikes and stopping. He was terrified of the bikes and developed a new sideways walk, and we ended up finding a park and sitting by the much less stressful koi pond for a little while until we could check in.
We stayed at
Fess Parker's Doubletree Resort, and we had a beautiful room with a great patio and ocean view.
We spent the rest of the late afternoon and evening on our balcony, enjoying the sunset with wine, cheese and pistachios. Room service for dinner!
I watched the sun rise the next morning, then we checked out and headed back to State Street to do more window shopping and get coffee. Neil bought me an awesome coat at one of the resale shops :)
The dog beach was next! We took Sparks to the beach, let him off his leash, and he had the best time chasing all the other dogs and getting filthy and wet. We spent our time collecting and skipping rocks.
After the beach, we were all tired and ready to go home. The drive home was just a little foggy, and all the recent rain has made everything so green, so it was a really nice drive back down the coast.
We had a really fun time, and can't wait to go back!
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