Weekend Getaway: Santa Barbara

This month, for personal and professional reasons, The Boys* had to come out from New York to Santa Barbara, so I decided to fly down for the weekend. It was a bit pricey, but, not only would I get a chance to see two of my favorite people in the world, I would also be able to cross a few more missions off my list. Win-win.

I always intend to visit Santa Barbara when I drive down to L.A., but it suffers from being a bit too close to that city (and you just want to get there already, and not stop and play tourist). On the one occasion that I did pass through, I only had time for lunch at La Super-Rica Taqueria.** I drove by the Santa Barbara Mission; however, it was Memorial Day weekend and the annual festival of I Madonnari (Italian street painting) and therefore I realized instantly that it would be insane to try and find parking anywhere near there, so I headed back to 101 and up the coast.

What I didn’t realize was that there’s so much to see and do in Santa Barbara (beyond the Mission) that it merits more than a detour, and has earned its place as my first weekend getaway.

First on your list should be the Courthouse, one of the loveliest you’ll ever see. Located at 1100 Anacapa Street (on the corner of Anapamu Street—and, yes, there are many similar sounding and confusing street names in this city), this building is a marvel inside and out, with hand-painted ceilings, spiral staircases, Spanish tiles, carved doors, and gorgeous murals depicting early California history. From the tower, you get a great view of the surrounding city, ocean, and mountains.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is one of the top ten regional museums in the country, and can serve as a nice respite from shopping on State Street. While we originally went to the museum to see the sand mandala created by the monks of the Sera Mahayana Buddhist Monastery in South India, the exhibition that really caught my eye was that of stop-motion photographer Ori Gersht, who had some incredible pieces inspired by one of my favorite artists, Henri Fantin-Latour.

Ori Gersht, Blow Up: Untitled 4, 2007

What can I say? I have a weakness for flowers, even when they are exploding.

Speaking of flowers, worth a trip into the hills is the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden on Mission Canyon Road. The gardens, which cover 78 acres, feature indigenous plants of California, with a meadow section, redwood section, desert section, etc. We were lucky to catch a number of plants in bloom, especially cacti. Absolutely beautiful.

Another fascinating freak of nature, and I’m not talking about the dolphins down by Stearns Wharf (although, dolphins!), is the Moreton Bay Fig Tree at the intersection of Chapala Street and Highway 101. Planted in the 1870s and now a city landmark, it is ginormous.

Of course, as any viewer of Sideways can tell you, Santa Barbara County is also wine country. Just over the San Marcos Pass and through the Los Padres National Forest is the Santa Ynez Valley, home of killer pinot noirs and chardonnays. If you don’t have time to go vineyard hopping, on any trip down 101, I highly recommend a detour to the small town of Los Olivos and a visit to the Los Olivos Tasting Room & Wine Shop. While in the neighborhood, be sure to stop in at the Disneyesque town of Solvang and the La Purísima Mission just down the road in Lompoc.

  

Yes, almost all of the stores and
hotels in Solvang look like this.



La Purísima Mission


Finally, a shout-out to the Bath Street Inn—a large, comfortable Victorian Bed & Breakfast close to the center of town. My room was actually larger than it seems in pictures and I had a lovely balcony to boot. In addition to afternoon tea and evening wine and cheese, they serve a delicious, filling breakfast, with homemade granola and such dishes as stuffed French toast and baked eggs (which were so good I raved about them and they printed out the recipe for me unasked). A great place.

 

Word to the wise: If you ever fly in to the Santa Barbara Airport, be aware that the relatively short taxi ride from the airport to downtown will set you back about $45, including tip. The shuttles you see parked right next to the taxis outside the airport will make the same trip for only $27-30.

* See future posts on Utah. One of The Boys took the profile pic on this page.

** La Super-Rica Taqueria at 622 North Milpas Street is reputed to be Julia Child’s “favorite taco stand”; however, a local who knew her swears she told him she had no idea where that rumor got started. Regardless, the roasted pasilla chile stuffed with cheese and the chorizo tacos were almost worth the ridiculous wait in line.

National Steinbeck Center

While you might not think any museum dedicated to the work of one writer is worth the detour, the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas just might change your mind.

Back in high school, I loved Steinbeck. This may or may not be attributed to a crush on James Dean and his role as Cal in East of Eden, but I do remember insisting that we visit Cannery Row on a family trip to California (before the Monterey Bay Aquarium took over the area). Watch for future posts on Marfa, TX (where my oldest friend in the world happens to live and where Giant was filmed) and the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles (where key scenes in Rebel Without a Cause take place and where I’ve actually never been, even though I seem to be in its backyard multiple times a year).

Maybe it’s a good thing Dean only made three films.

Completely coincidentally, I re-enacted his fatal drive to Salinas on my latest trip back from Pasadena when I refueled in Lost Hills and crossed over to Paso Robles on Route 46. Unfortunately, I was not in a Porsche. Fortunately, no one ran into me head on either.

But I digress.

What was great about the National Steinbeck Center was that you could really see how the evolution of Steinbeck’s life influenced his writing, from growing up in the agricultural world of the Salinas Valley, which heavily influenced both The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952), to his time living in a cottage in Pacific Grove, where he met Ed Ricketts, the model for “Doc” in Cannery Row (1945) and with whom he traveled to the Sea of Cortez, where he heard the story he eventually transformed into The Pearl, to his time as a war correspondent in Europe, which made its way into his script for Alfred Hitchcock’s film Lifeboat.

One gets a real sense of place from the displays, which include a railway boxcar (a key element in East of Eden) and the homemade truck/camper (named Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s horse) in which Steinbeck toured the U.S., a trip described in Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1960). A number of displays were interactive and help to understand books one hasn’t read. There are also cute little touches like the bag of “frogs” from Cannery Row, designed to move and sound as if there are live frogs in it. My only complaint would be with the audio—the numerous film clips were great for making the books come alive, but you could hear too many different things at the same time.

In short, if you find yourself driving down the 101 through Salinas, or touring the Monterey peninsula, check it out.