Day 7: Adventures with Uncle John and Aunt Joan

I didn't sleep well last night. Our hotel was picturesque, cheap, and had paper thin walls. I ended up listening to the constant slamming of the balcony door from the upstairs room for what seemed like an extremely long time until they started arguing very violently. Peter passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow; typical.

Luckily for my sleep-deprived body,  we only had a three hour journey today from Palm Springs to Santa Barbara. After a breakfast of bad coffee and tiny sweet pie things, Peter took the wheel and drove like a superstar through the intimidating freeways of southern California.

Palm Springs in the morning.

Making our way out of town. 

We finished Game of Thrones today, pretty incredible that this book on tape lasted from Ohio past Palm Springs. We're pretty eager to pick up the second book because this one was such a good listen, but it may have to wait until our trip back to Oxford since we wont finish it before  Vancouver. Instead we have Terry Pratchett's book Mort to listen to for the rest of the journey. Peter is cracking up quite a bit, a nice break from the war and tragedy of Game of Thrones. Although I would pop in the second book in a heartbeat, I am enjoying a book on the lighter side and I always enjoy hearing Peter giggling next to me.

 I took a lot of pictures because I was so excited about the new California scenery

 Lots of little white toothpicks? 

 Nope. Lots of massive white windmills. Cool. 

 First sight of the ocean! Exciting!

 Peter was so cool driving up and down these hills. 

 More winding highway. 

 At the top and headed down.

 Horses on the side of the highway. 

 We may have put in a new book on tape, but I was way more interested in looking for the super fancy homes on the tops of the hills. This was in Calabasas.

 We turned the corner and saw even more ocean! There were lots of surfer dots on the water today. 

 We arrived at aunt Joan and uncle John's house around 12:30pm and were welcomed in with open arms, luggage assistance upstairs, and fed homemade pizza for lunch. It's been about two years since the last time we saw John and Joan, so it was nice to catch up for a bit. After lunch Peter and I walked down to the city center to do a bit of sight seeing and shopping.

 We were told by our hosts to cut through the park. Done.

Tuesday is the one day the farmer's market comes to the center of town! How lucky were we?!

Lots of great local ranches selling their goods. Lots of street performers and pretty flowers all around.

Peter walked away with some local black olives that had been soaked in honey and balsamic. Yum!

My first attempt of the trip to get a picture of Peter. This is a picture of him dodging.

We may be in California but we were pretty chilly after walking around in t-shirts. 

We stopped in at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf to warm up. My English Breakfast latte was delicious. 

Joan made reservations for dinner at a place I think was call Victoria. It was an Italian restaurant downtown that officially ended our "road food" style eating. It was lovely. 

 The Jamieson's always treat their guests extremely well, tonight was no different. We started out with some calamari. John shows us an action shot of the dipping experience. 

Peter got the homemade ravioli 

 I got the special Gorgonzola pasta with walnuts. Rating: 8

Tomorrow we're staying put in Santa Barbara to relax, see more sights, and get a visit from Peter's cousin Eric. I've requested to get some physical activity in and some of the options on the table are hiking, kayaking, or walking around town. 

Until tomorrow, Santa Barbara. 

Lexi