TRIP TO DAD'S -- PART TWO

We safely made it to our motel on Sunday after two full days of driving. We didn't  have to report as dad's caregivers until Wednesday, so we decided to make a couple of day trips on Monday and Tuesday. We chose to make a trip to Santa Barbara on Monday. Every time we go down to dad's visiting Santa Barbara is a must, for three main reasons. One, to shop at Whole Foods and get some of our favorite tonic water for our drinkiepoos (it is Whole Foods 365 brand); Two, to shop at Trader Joe's and get whatever we need from there (usually tea, olive oil, soy sauce, and various other things we like); and Three, to eat lunch at Harry's Plaza Cafe (click here for their website). This has become a tradition every time we go to see dad, we must eat lunch at Harry's sometime before we leave. The reason we like it so much is it is a throw-back to the old days, and I do mean the old, old days of like the 50's and 60's. They have great food, too, and they always bring you a small plate of sourdough bread, sour cream, and their signature salsa to munch on while you wait on your order. The atmosphere is quiet and subdued, unlike most restaurants these days. You can actually carry on a conversation and hear what is being said. They have red leather booths and pictures all over the wall of different celebrities and dignitaries who have eaten there. It's just a very interesting place.

Harry's Plaza Cafe

After our trip to Santa Barbara we headed over to dad's house to spend some time with the family. With it being the playoffs to the World Series, we settled in to what would be our evening routine for the next couple of weeks: drinkiepoo, dinner and baseball.

The next day, Tuesday, we took a trip over to Ojai (pronounced Oh-Hi). This is a little artsy, spiritualistic community that we absolutely love (visit the city website here). A couple of years ago we briefly entertained the fantasy that we would move there, but reality eventually set in and we realized it was not possible. Still, we do like to make the trip whenever we are in the area, as it is only about 40 minutes away. One reason we like to go there is to visit Bart's Books (visit website here). This is an "outdoor" type bookstore because it is a structure that has no roof! The books, which are mostly under little overhangs, do not seem to suffer from the weather. Ojai is located in a somewhat dry valley, and I don't think they get a whole lot of rain. Also when in Ojai, we very much enjoy walking around the backside of their main street shops. The front side is right up against a busy highway and is very noisy, but the backside has trees and grass and benches to sit on. We got a sandwich and some chips at the Rainbow Bridge grocery store (website here) and ate our lunch while sitting on a bench people-watching.

Ojai post office

We returned to home base and decided to go in search of Little Free Libraries in Carpinteria, which is the town below the hills where dad lives. We found all three of them and also dropped off some painted rocks from the Yakima Valley Rocks Facebook group.

The next day, Wednesday, we decided to take a walk down on the beach before we had to begin our duties looking after dad. Linda's sister and brother-in-law were not leaving for their vacation until after lunch, so we drove down to Carpinteria State Beach for a walk. The weather was perfect with a slight breeze blowing. I think it had been years since we had walked on a beach, and it felt good.

I took a few videos. I thought it might be nice to show the hills opposite the beach, which is where dad lives.

We had a nice walk along the beach and ran across some really interesting things. Someone had made a sort of "art project" on the beach. Linda added her touch to it and I took a picture to document it for posterity.

Modern art?

I thought this was a pretty cool piece of seaweed.

Looking out over the ocean from State Beach you can see a number of structures out on the horizon that look like ships.  Upon zooming in on them with my camera, I could see that they were not ships but were oil drilling platforms. Linda says there used to be way more of them, but as they became inoperable they were taken down. I can't imagine going to the beach back in the day and seeing those things scattered all over the place!

Oil drilling platform

There were lots of birds walking along the shore, and some of them were kind enough to pose for me.

A big difference between the beaches on the West coast versus the beaches on the East coast is the amount of shells that are washed up on the shore. I don't think we saw any shells on the beach during our walk. Intact, whole shells are quite rare on the beaches out West. Back East, the beaches are littered with shells of all kinds. We used to walk on Holden Beach and pick up buckets full of perfect shells every time.

Upon leaving the beach we happened upon this cute sculpture that was just begging me to take its picture.

PARTING SHOT

As per my agreement with Summer Girl, for the posts about our trip we are going to have different pictures of birds stand in for her in the Parting Shot. Here is a picture of a very different kind of bird. Can anyone guess what it is? I will tell you that it is not a bird native to this country. I will reveal its name on next week's blog.

Mystery bird

That's all for now. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day and I hope we all can refrain from eating too much...yeah, good luck with that!