Santa Barbara...."It's an Easy Walk."

Avie sent me some great "Why Pets Hate Halloween" pictures. I want to post a few, but I've been yapping about Santa Barbara for the last three days. 

The Mission

Wanda was born and raised in California. I've been here the better part of forty-five years. This was our first visit to Santa Barbra, and we took a ship. This cruise stop is a tender port and I don't mean soft meat. You take a small water craft from the cruise ship to a dock. Obviously, you need to take one back as well. It's about a fifteen minute ride. The tenders carry between one and one hundred fifty people so you make new friends quickly. They can rock around some and smell like diesel fuel but if you want to go into town it's that, or swim.

The tricky thing about tender ports is you can't bank on getting in. If the seas are rough the Captain deems it too dangerous for the transfers. My personal preference on these stops is "been there, done that" and I stay on the ship. Of course, if it's a new experience or I really want something I'll go in.

It looks close....Grand Princess in Santa Barbara

While the Mission is the most iconic place in town we opted to first go to the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens. I'm not going to post any pictures. For those of you in California, go look out your window. Those of you living elsewhere, think lots of grey and brown. Oh Hell, I should post something I guess.

All plants, shrubs and trees are native to our state. This time of year it was basically devoid of color but it was very peaceful. We saw some giant redwoods and a few entertaining squirrels. Admission for both of us was $6. We had a 2-4-1 coupon and senior discount. Maybe they figured we wouldn't be able to walk the entire place? For another $6 I would go through it again in spring.

The garden was our first stop. Before we left I called the S.B. Chamber of Commerce to ask about a few things. I was told the garden was about a mile and a half above the mission. "It's an easy walk, all downhill. Actually, it's an easy walk to the ship." Two people gave me this information. 

The gardens open at 9 a.m. so we took a tender in around 8:20. There was a hospitality tent at the dock with friendly helpful people, coupons and maps. I remembered I'd been told to get the 2-4-1 coupon there so I approached; "We're thinking about taking a cab to the garden and walking back." I said in a half statement half question way. Susan smiled, "Oh, you'll love the walk. It's not far and all downhill." So off to the cabs we went.

Several people told us the cab fare was between $15 and $20.

We walked less than five minutes to find a very long line of cabs waiting curbside. As is protocol we jumped in the first one. We had a very nice, friendly and chatty lady driver. I drove a cab for a couple of years. I hate chatty cab drivers so I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the meter. Wanda did the talking.

After a not requested tour around the courthouse (which I admit was really beautiful) and the running commentary that, "Michael Jackson's trail was here because Neverland Ranch is in Santa Barbara County." I was biting my tongue and drawing blood. I think Michael was a talent and a bit of a freak, but that's just me. Now the meter is hitting seven bucks and our driver is still farting around with her Garmin. "What did you say that address was?" She asks.

So we got a little tour of the city, I saw two Starbucks, One Pete's and several independent coffee places. I also was getting crazier by the minute watching the meter click, click and click. It looked like a very unfriendly slot machine. At close to ten bucks it looked like we were on the way to the gardens.

At fifteen dollars our driver said, "I guess I should have driven up here once to see where it is." At eighteen dollars she said, "I thought I saw a sign for the BIONIC Gardens. Now, all those people that said we had an easy walk ahead of us, remember? Well, all the people that walk in Santa Barbara must have BIONIC legs. But, the GARDENS are BOTANICAL. Later Wanda said, "If that driver said bionic gardens one more time I think I would have screamed."

I wanted to smack her...the driver, not Wanda but we were now over twenty bucks, obviously lost and driving a narrow one lane road. It was a long drop over the side. At twenty-three dollars I saw a sign pointing to the Botanical Gardens down the left fork of the road, we went right. Two miles later we came around a circle and passed the same fork. Now we were heading back down the road from where we came and at twenty-eight dollars. Wanda saw steam coming out of my ears.

At thirty dollars I yelled, "YOU NEED TO PULL OVER AND LET US OUT RIGHT THERE, RIGHT NOW." And with that she said she was sorry, she was lost and she would only charge us $20. One park, a fire station and ten dollars later (she left the meter running) we made it to the entrance of the Santa Barbara Bionic Gardens.

After walking a mile or so through the gardens we got directions to the Mission. "Go to the fire station down the road. There is a horse trail just behind it. Follow that to the park and cut through the parking lot to the right. Now follow that street a few blocks downhill (again with the downhill) and you'll see the Mission. Oh, and be careful between here and the fire station, you have to walk in the road."

"But you should be fine. This is a canyon and a week day. Everyone that's coming and going lives here." Right! Except the tow truck, UPS van, furniture delivery truck and half the Audi's in California. I had Wanda walk behind me. I figured if she saw a car coming she could push me out of the way.

Finding the fire station was no problem. Neither was the horse trail, except for all the horse crap. We found the parking lot fine but when we came to the exit and the street we couldn't see the Mission and were lost. Lucky for us we spotted a guy walking near by. He had a walking stick in each hand, was about eighty-five years old and said, "Follow me......I'm going right by the place." I thought I'd stroke out trying to keep up with him. After a block or so I stopped trying.

By this time I didn't give a damn about the Mission, I just wanted a bottle of water and a bathroom.

Eventually we found the Mission and it was very interesting. We did not tour the inside. I wanted to save something for our next visit. So we walked the grounds for awhile and started our hike to the ship.

TWO HOURS and about four miles later we arrived on the ocean beach. My shins hurt so bad I couldn't flex my feet. Every step I took felt like I'd been on the rack in the Tower of London, not on an "easy downhill walk" in Santa Barbara, California.

I had mixed feelings about the place. There were lots of things to do and see. The contradiction between the large beautiful and very expensive homes and the bums on every park bench was puzzling. The scene reminded me a little of 1968-69 Berkeley. 

I'll wrap up the cruise next Monday. I'm looking forward to getting back to sharing important news of the world with you all.