Mark and Sharon went off to work and we toured Santa Barbara. Andrew’s bike was having problems so we found a bike shop and dropped it off. We parked at the Santa Barbara pier and took a tram down State Street, dropping us a few blocks from the old Mission built in the late 1700’s, when California was founded. At the end of the tram line, we walked about a mile thru beautiful residential area to the Santa Barbara Mission. The San Xavier Mission we saw in Arizona was built about the same time, but was far more ornate than the Santa Barbara Mission, which was rebuilt in the 1800’s after being destroyed after an earthquake. We walked back to the downtown area thru a park full of beautiful flowers and trees. We stopped of lunch at the Santa Barbara Brewing Company. We continued back to our truck where we had parked next to a stake park. We watch people state, roller blade and skateboard for a few minutes.
We picked up Andrew’s bike, ran a few errands and went back to Mark and Sharon’s for a shower and fresh fruit. Their Landlady, Mary, has lots of fruit and Macadamia nut trees on her property and invited us to take what we wanted. We picked some Macadamia nuts and loquats (a loquat is a tropical fruit that tastes something between a peach and a mango), we also got a couple of oranges, lemons and grapefruits. We left Santa Barbara and headed towards Carrizo Plain. We found some BLM land access along the way and stopped for the night.