After finally getting around to going to Santa Barbara we realized that there was a lot more than the zoo that we wanted to see there. We decided we had to go back! For two whole days! On the last weekend in August Maya had Thursday-Sunday off so it was the perfect time to go. We planned it all out, bought our tickets, booked our hotel and really did it!
Matt has been staying up late and consequently getting up late. Maya doesn’t like to move that fast on days when she doesn’t have to work. As a result we rarely are able to make it out of the house very early. This is part of the reason why we were so late in starting our day at the zoo last time and part of the reason we needed to have two days. We did fairly well on the morning of our departure: we were on the road by 11:00. Considering that Matt is still in bed at 11:00 some mornings, this was good indeed. It takes close to an hour and a half to get there so it was lunch time when we arrived in Santa Barbara. Good thing we looked up where there was a Taco Bell. Yum.
The first thing we did was see Mission Santa Barbara. It’s been called “the Queen of the Missions” and it was indeed lovely. Since Santa Barbara was also the site of the local Spanish government as well as the site of a mission it was one of Alta California’s original (European) population centers. The mission also became the site of California’s first bishop when there were enough Catholics here to warrant it. For all these reasons, the mission could afford a little more lavish facilities right from the beginning. There was a stone church built early on and then another to replace it when the first one fell down. The church has been in continuous use and has been maintained very nicely. It’s not nessicarily the most authentic mission, but it is stunningly beautiful. The day we were there sun was shining in a nearly cloudless blue sky. The heat from the sun and the breeze from the ocean made for the perfect temperature. California is a beautiful place.
After the mission we went slightly up into the hills to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. It looks like a palatial rancher’s home that has been converted. It could totally be a clan castle. The big attraction right now is a set of dinosaur bones from Africa. There was a long-neck’s leg (Jobaria) and the Sahara’s version of Sharptooth (Afrovenator). We were really excited about it, but somehow it was a bit of a let-down. Maybe we felt there were supposed to more skeletons… The regular displays of the museum include all kinds of stuff on geology and extensive displays on various fossil animals. There was also a small (very small) astronomy-themed room as well as nice collection of Chumash artifacts. They had a sea-going boat built in the manor of the Chumash. They split logs into planks then drilled holes in the planks and bound them together with ropes. The cracks between were sealed with tar. This vessels allowed trade and travel along the coast and out to the Channel Islands more than six miles offshore. Masters of their environment!
Outside was the skeleton of blue whale. The largest creature ever. It is amazing to think that there are creatures that large out there in the ocean right now! Also, there were some rocks with bits of whale bone fossils in them so Matt just had to have his picture with them.
The next day we went aboard the Condor Express with high hopes to see a living blue whale. We had booked ourselves a whale-watching cruise. We imagined something like four hours of brilliant sun and seeing huge animals splashing trough the water and blowing their spouts on all sides. Reality is often bitterly different from imagination. We did indeed spend many long hours on a boat cruising through the Channel. There were just two things missing: the sun and the whales. Once we were out in the water a fog set in the reduced visibility to at most one fourth of a mile. It turns out that the way you find whales when whale-watching is to watch for them. So with visibility so low we would have had to stumble upon a whale to see it. And while we were bumbling about in the fog it kept getting colder and colder. Or maybe it just seemed that way.
We did see a lot of dolphins. The nature guides along with us said that it was a mega-pod of common dolphins numbering over 1000 individuals. As the tales say, the dolphins did indeed follow the boat and played in its wake. Maya says it must be fun to be a dolphin because when you watch them they seem to completely enjoy being dolphins. Then, just when had given up on seeing a whale, we saw one! We saw two! It was a mother humpback and her nearly-grown calf. We caught a few brief glimpses of their backs and their flukes but then they dove and we lost them in the fog. It was really neat to see them but it was disappointing not to see a blue whale and to be so cold for so long.
We had left the dock sometime after 10:00 and it was close to 3:00 by the time we were back. There was only one more thing we really, really wanted to see. We drove back up into the foothills of the mountains and went to the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden. The garden specializes in plants of California. Not just plants from the Central Coast either. They have samples of all of California’s diverse plant live. There was a redwood grove and a collection of orchids native to the state. There was also a cactus area, a plains area and one hillside was devoted to the hearty, scrubby plants of the Channel Islands. The thing that we really liked about the garden is that, for the most part, they aren’t garden-like. That is, they looked less like someone intentionally planted things in rows and more like someone scooped up whole hillsides from various places in California and placed them all together without disturbing any of the plants on the hills. Of course, that probably means the garden’s keepers work extra hard to maintain that look. In some places “garden” is not even the right word and the place looks more like a preserve of the naturally occurring flora. Of course, for a California-themed garden in California that is only appropriate. The Botanic Garden also contains the 1806 dam built by Indians (under Franciscan direction) that helped deliver water to the mission below. Parts of the aqueduct run along side of the trails in the garden.
We felt good to go home after the gardens. There is a lot more to do in Santa Barbara, like taking sailing lessons, going to Rocky Nook Park, seeing the art gallery and the Presidio downtown… All that (and more) we’ll have to leave for some other time.
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