Surrogate Vacation

After deciding to not go to Japan, Steven and I used a coupon we had for 2 nights and wine tasting in Santa Barbara that we had and needed to use anyway. It's a good thing too because when I called the hotel, I learned that because of the coupon, they were basically fully booked except for the weekend we were planning on going before the coupon expired. One issue was that for the first night we had to upgrade to a fancy room which was not too much extra and seemed like fun anyway.

This is the fancy room. Notice the fireplace!

Here's our veranda which we rarely got to use. I stood out in the rain for a total of 20 seconds for this pic.

Steven spent a bit longer out on the veranda because I accidentally locked him out. Turns out there is NOT a handle on the outside of this window/door. It was letting in a cold draft while Steven was out so I closed it and went to the bathroom. Steven was not amused.








Here's a video for taste of what we experienced.










Eventually with all of the rain, our fancy room included a new feature. Water dripping from the ceiling!



Despite the fancy room being fancy, we actually didn't get a lot of sleep due to all the rain and wind and debris hitting the window constantly. I'd say I got a total of 3 hours of sleep...maybe. It was awful. The only way I was able to sleep was to stuff tissues in my ears and cover my head with a pillow. I bought ear plugs for our second night.

When the weather cleared a bit we decided to take a walk around town. Those Santa Barbarians (note the pun) were still out in the water in their little boats!

We found a bike for Steven.

And we found a pretty little carousel with no children in sight. Only a few bums. It was kinda creepy actually.

On our second day there, we decided to explore their City Hall building which is just gorgeous. I'd say it beats Pasadena mostly because everything was so open to the public to poke around.

The next 2 pics are of the hand painted ceilings by some Italian dude they brought over.

This is a new sculpture they are currently making.

Check out them tiles! Also notice the extensive rain gear. This is me with a shirt, sweater, and a wool jacket, all topped with a rain coat. I'm also wearing thermal pants under my jeans. Maybe it was overkill but at least I was comfy.

On our first trip to City Hall we weren't allowed up to the top of the tower for the 360* views of the city so we went back. It was worth the second trip.

Near our hotel was another lookout point which we went to on our final morning when it was finally sunny!

By far, my favorite part of the trip was when I realized that we had HBO and the Pee-Wee Herman special was premiering. Lucky me! Unfortunately Steven didn't watch Pee-Wee as a kid so it wasn't as fun for him. Oh well. Steven liked walking in the rain much more than I did.