Santa Barbara

Mark and I decided to take a trip to Santa Barbara for Valentine's Day weekend. We were thrilled to find out that our friends May and Jay were thinking about going there as well. We combined efforts and planned out a great weekend. We drove up to Santa Maria on Saturday evening and stayed in the Radisson there which had a cute little patio.

After a good nights sleep we headed out early to start our wine tasting. We drove from Santa Maria to Solvang and visited these five wineries:

1. Foxen
2. Mellville
3. Rusack
4. Sunstone
5. Kalyara

Foxen and Kalyara were our favorite. Foxen was very rustic, with the tasting room in an open barn building and Kalyara was fun and had the best wines. It was only 4pm when we finished the tastings and we were all exhausted and hungry so we went to the Hitching Post for dinner. May and Jay ordered Ostrich and Mark and I split a HUGE 26oz steak. We also managed to get a free roasted artichoke appetizer which was amazing and made me rethink my dislike for artichokes. You would think that we would have been full from all the food but we couldn't resist the cute Danish pastry shop where we got coffee and dessert. The rest of the night was pretty relaxing. We dropped our stuff off at our Bed and Breakfast, A White Jasmine Inn, and hung out at an arcade.

We woke up to a faint knock on the door and little breakfasts' in a basket. After packing up we headed to the Warf where we pet baby sharks and other little sea creatures. Then we grabbed some crab cakes and clam chowder at a Restaurant on the pier. Our next stops were the Missions and the Courthouse. The Courthouse has a tower with a great view of the city and ocean. We managed to finish everything on our check list by 2pm so we spent the rest of the day walking around State street and window shopping. We ate dinner at a great restaurant called Pierre Lafond Bistro which was a great way to end the trip.