California Trip - Day 8 - Santa Barbara & Wall of Gum

We awoke to the coolest weather of the trip with temps hovering mid to upper 50s for good part of the day. The "June Swoon" (fog that typically covers the California coastline during most of the summer) was in full affect. Crimson struggled with the cold a little more than me but kept refusing opportunities to purchase some warmer gear. I guess staying in style has its price.

This day was probably the shortest and least active of all our days. This was fairly intentional as the days surrounding it were packed to the gills.

First off was Santa Barbara. I think this site would have been a bit nicer had the weather been warmer. We checked out the beach front and harbor, ate Fish & Chips at the pier and did a little walking around town. We went up to the top of the tower of the really nice courthouse for a good view of the red tile rooftops.



One of the stranger events was our experience with the bus. First we had trouble deciphering which bus was going where. When I asked for assistance the driver told us his bus would take us downtown. We got on and ended up on the other side of town at "the end of the line". When I mentioned our prior discussion to the driver he said, "I don't remember talking to you". It wasn't as if hours had passed or a lot of passengers had confused him. It had been about 10 minutes and only 5 passengers including us. We eventually got pointed in the right direction and had a good laugh.

Next up was a stop I was really looking for to. Three miles from Guadalupe are the largest coastal dunes in the U.S. Unfortunately, when we got there, access was closed on Monday & Tuesday. Oh well, everything can't go perfect.

From there it was to another swinging pedestrian bridge in Arroyo Grande originally built in 1875. Just as the last in San Diego, Crimson would have none of it. I don't know what the obsession was with bridges on this trip. Maybe I was gearing up for the Golden Gate. Maybe it was the equivalent of waterfalls in Iceland?

Up next was San Luis Obispo. Given our desire to keep this day short, we had only one stop in mind, Bubblegum Alley. A pictures is worth thousand words or maybe just one?





A brief stop at the cold windy shores of Morro Boy was it before settling down at our hotel in San Simeon. Due to limited choices and convenience it was Mexican dinner again. It was decent but after that we'd had enough Mexican for the trip.

California Trip - Day 7 - Six Flags Magic Mountain

This was one day I knew Crimson was looking forward to. She's a roller coaster enthusiast, making this the perfect park for her. With 18 coasters total, it's the most in the world.

Since the park didn't open until 10:30 and we were staying right next to it, we actually go a bit more sleep than usual. We were going to need it for this nice long hot day. Now that we were inland, the temps spiked up to 90F but at least the humidity wasn't as high as home. A 5 minute shuttle ride from the hotel to the park saved us $15 parking.

It was a great day to go. The lines were very short except for a couple allowing us to ride everything we wanted to. Unfortunately, the world's tallest, fastest and longest flying coaster, Tatsu wasn't working all day.

Our favorites were probably X2 & Deja Vu (wish they still had it here):





At 5:30 we had pretty much covered everything we want to see and set off back to the coast and our hotel in Ventura. This particular hotel was easily the worse of the bunch. We did find some decent Mexican food right across the street where one of the patrons was a genuine Hell's Angel.

California Trip - Day 6 - LA Beaches

If we were going to see some of the L.A. beaches, on a weekend no less, we'd have to pick a choose carefully and get a somewhat early start. We were starting to get a little tired of the slim pickings for breakfast at the hotel and started eating our breakfast groceries instead. Pop-tarts, muffins and cereal bars filled the whole until lunchtime.

First, we took a route most would overlook, hugging the coast through Palos Verdes instead of cutting across it. I'm glad we did because it was a beautiful section.

From there is was on to Venice Beach. Knowing it was going to be swamped, I grabbed parking at the first lot I could find close to the boardwalk. It cost $17 but was much better than walking a mile to and from the car.



A quick look at the canals left Crimson unimpressed and we made our way to the boardwalk. We watched several street performers (both good and bad), looked at peoples arts & crafts, gazed into many shops, people watched and had a nice lunch at a street cafe. We stayed longer than I originally expected and Crimson didn't want to leave. In fact, she kept mentioning that she wanted to return at various points during our trip. This worried me a bit. It was the festival atmosphere that seemed to draw her to it.

From there it was on to Santa Monica. Fortunately, there were parking garages around this area because the placed was jammed packed. Tons of people in and around the water. I found the place a bit underwhelming and would have spent the time at Venice Beach had I known it. With the next day set for Six Flags Magic Mountain, the tiny coaster wasn't much of a thought.



Next up was the journey to Malibu. We stopped along PCH when we spotted a parking spot to take a quick look at a public beach access and then went to Malibu Bluffs Park for some nice views. Crimson was exhausted and asleep from this point on as I drove through to Oxnard and back inland towards our hotel in Valencia next to Six Flags. I actually found the trip from Malibu to Oxnard to Valencia more scenic than the one from Santa Monica to Malibu although some of the houses around Malibu were incredible.

Upon reaching the hotel, I had work to do as we'd reached the midway point of our trip and we were running out of clean clothes. We ordered some pretty good, albeit expensive, room service, watched some Sunday night TV and did laundry.