The View From My Beer
Today I enjoyed a Stella Artois on the couch with Bailey after we had returned from our day trip to Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara is a coast city north of Los Angeles with a population of 90,000. It is popular with tourists, including people from the Greater Los Angeles area who want to escape city life and swap for a more relaxed beach resort. Santa Barbara has a Mediterranean climate and is sometimes referred to as the ‘American Riviera’. I hve driven through Santa Barbara a few times, and purchased our last car here, but didn’t recall ever visiting. Michelle spent a day here once not long before we met in 2001.
My Walk
It was a 3-hour drive each way from Irvine and Santa Barbara. This meant we only had 3-4 hours to spend before we would have to return home. Not knowing a lot about Santa Barbara we decided to start in the downtown area before heading towards the pier.
Santa Barbara






After a 3 hour drive from Irvine we parked the car near the centre of town and walked the streets to get a feel for the place before we settled on a place to have lunch. Santa Barbara was a dog friendly town, so we didn’t have any problems finding somewhere with Bailey. Neither Michelle or I had visited the Santa Barbara CBD before. It was typical of a Southern California beach town, casual, with interesting shops, and the occasional smell of weed in the air.
Santa Barbara Pier






After lunch we made the walk to the pier. Michelle had been to the pier before, wheas I believe this was my first visit to the pier. The breeze was cool, even when sitting in the sun.