Santa Barbara Vacation – Day 4

We started off the morning riding our bikes to Sambo’s for breakfast. This was our first bike ride as a family in Santa Barbara and Juliette’s first time riding outside of Irvine. She did a great job going up and down the curbs. We all enjoyed Sambo’s pancakes, waffles, eggs, and especially their free mini chocolate chip muffins. [slideshow]

After breakfast, we decided to explore outside of downtown Santa Barbara, and drove over to Montecito to take a look. We walked along the beach and around the Four Seasons resort. On our way back, we drove through the hills above Santa Barbara and even visited an Open House. [slideshow]

We then headed over to the Santa Barbara Mission where we walked through the beautiful rose garden and sat down for a picnic lunch. We also chased butterflies and caught quite a few of them. The girls picked up some postcards to write and send to their cousins. [slideshow]

After a brief caffeine stop at The Daily Grind, we continued our butterfly catching mission at Alameda Park. Once all the butterflies were captured and stored safely, the girls ran around and played in the gigantic playground. [slideshow]

Seeing as the girls weren’t tired yet, we decided to drive up to UCSB and ride around the bike trails. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that there was fire just above Goleta which was raining ash down on the campus. Juliette did a good job riding on the trails but had to stop every 100 feet to rub ash out of her eyes (note the improvised head-covering). You can see the paths we rode below:

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We finished off our UCSB experience with burritos at Freebirds… except that as we pulled into town the power went out. Fortunately, we were one of the last customers allowed into the restaurant which now was only taking cash and using an iPhone as a calculator to ring up orders. We ate up our humongous burritos in the dark and headed back to the safety of downtown. [slideshow]

Before going to bed, the girls enjoyed a final game of UNO. [slideshow]