Last week we commemorated the 50th anniversary of that weekend by returning to Santa Barbara, this time for three nights and no work to come back to. It was actually next door to the place we stayed in 1960! This one was nicer though, and a great internet special price that made it cheaper too. We're not that sentimental.
The fast food fish place is gone. But there are so many wonderful restaurants, and we took advantage. There's a walk around the yacht harbor to the end of the breakwater, and lots of the recovering population of brown pelicans are in view. The wharf is another nice water walk. And the famous El Paseo mall, smack in the middle of downtown, is beautifully laid out with elegant architectural deail. Santa Barbara is unusual in having such a complete downtown mall, with Nordstrom's and Macy's as anchors. There's a 25¢ shuttle from the foot of the wharf that traverses State Street every 15 minutes or so.
This is only one of the blooming things we saw as we walked the blocks inland from the beach, on our way to and from downtown. Maybe it's the most exotic one, but there are huge hibiscus everywhere, and hundreds of other blooming bushes, and ancient trees with thick trunks, just practically a jungle. We didn't drive this time. A local bus stops just outside our driveway, and it delivered us to the Escondido Transit Center. From there a light rail line goes to Oceanside. From Oceanside we caught Amtrak's Surfliner to Santa Barbara, and ended up in walking distance from our hotel. It excites my imagination that I can roll my bag out my front door and go anywhere in the world, because there's a frequent shuttle from the train at Union Station in L.A. directly to LAX. It makes me feel viscerally connected.
What happens in reality is a little bit of a drag though -- the romance of the rails isn't so romantic on these commuter runs. It's important to have a book. The 15 miles or so to the coast from Escondido takes an hour on the light rail, because there are 15 stops. The Surfliner train is packed, and in order to get seats together we had to sit backwards, because single individuals take up at least half of the forward facing seats. You have to try not to be irritated by that. We spent the whole way from Oceanside to Los Angeles watching for a chance to get seats together where we could face forward, and at about Anaheim we succeeded. Guess what. In LA the train changes direction on the way out of the station and goes in reverse. On the way home again we just sat backwards from Santa Barbara to L.A., because we knew the game.
But here's the thing. You don't have to drive. You don't have to drive through Los Angeles! And the travel times are very close -- 5-6 hours. The round trip price is good, especially if you are old enough to be celebrating your 50th anniversary.
