Day 2 of California Dreamin’ : Santa Barbara

Why Santa Barbara you may ask?  So twice in the last 2 years, we planned a roadtrip from San Francisco to Los Angeles. 2 years ago we had to cancel, the subzero temperatures of February attacked our water pipes, and we lost everything in our home from water damage. The 2nd time was this trip, Spirit cancelled our flight unbeknownst to us, no email, no phone call to inform us.  So, we did a last minute quick scramble to the west coast which was directly to LA and clearly had to change our itinerary, cancel our hotels.

Needless to say, on both San Francisco to LA itineraries, I had Santa Barbara as our last overnight stop before LA. So, during brunch, I randomly said lets drive to Santa Barbara.

Hubs was agreeable, after all we had a super reliable Fox Rental Car and it was only 1hr 30min away.  And although it was unplanned, the sunny blue skies, driving along the coast so close to the water, calmed this control freak.

So we left North East LA, drove through…

So we arrived in Santa Barbara a short time later, and I knew it was some places we were supposed to go, State Street, the Mission, the Wharf… So we wanted to maximize our trip before heading back in that crazy LA traffic we’ve heard so much about.

So for starters, we took a stroll down State Street…

A bit parched from our travels,

…we fell prey to the sign from a cafe stating that we have to try their lavender lemonade, so we did, and it was oh so good! 

As we headed back to the car, there was some heavy thinking…

Due to time constraints, we had the tough choice between the Mission and Stearns Wharf…

Yeah we chose Stearns Wharf… 

The views were just stunning…

It was a tad windy…

But a warm breeze…

So after perusing the shops, and of course buying candy from the Mother Stearns Candy Store, we began to head back to LA.

Santa Barbara is beautiful, and just so relaxing. One can’t help but appreciate this city. Of course, we missed out on so much so maybe when I plan our next trip from San Francisco to LA, it’ll actually happen and we’ll be able to stay in Santa Barbara overnight *wink wink*

 

Naomi