Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Surprising Santa Barbara
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — For someone with only one cup of coffee in her system and a steep, craggy trail run into Rattlesnake Canyon looming, it was not the best way to greet the morning.
“Keep an eye out for loose rocks,” a pair of passing hikers called out as I rounded a turn on the switchback path.
“Oh, and rattlesnakes!” they added with a nonchalant air, as they scrambled past me on their way back to their car.
Did they say snakes?
Ugh. So much for a relaxing run to clear my head.
It was prescient advice. Keeping an eye out for the unexpected ended up being a theme on our vacation in this Mediterranean-style city on California’s central coast.
Some like to call Santa Barbara the American Riviera because of its blue-skied, sandy-beached similarity to France’s white-washed Cote d’Azur. And indeed, it’s about as drop-dead gorgeous as a city can be with its picturesque sea of red-tiled roofs nestled between the rugged, chaparral-covered Santa Ynez Mountains and the sandy shores of
the Pacific Ocean.
But I came to think of Santa Barbara as how Forrest Gump’s mother viewed a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get. For example:
Who expects to step out of their car at a winery and run into a … peacock? That was our welcome at Pence Ranch, a 200-acre working ranch and estate vineyard in nearby Buellton that’s making a name for itself with its exquisite pinot noirs and chardonnays.
In a region first occupied by the Chumash Indians and later settled by the Spanish, who knew it’d really be all about the Danish in the village of Solvang? Along with four windmills and half-timbered houses, its charm lies in its signature statues of Hans Christian Andersen and a replica of Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid. It’s also a great place to find cuckoo clocks and aebleskiver, traditional Danish apple pancakes.
And sure, this Sideways country has more wineries and tasting rooms within easy driving distance than you could possibly visit in a week, let alone a month or year. But there’s an emerging craft beer scene, too, along with more than a few restaurants serving some of the best produce and seafood on either coast, both in and out of its hip and funky Funk Zone.
I’d gotten my husband to the West Coast because of a destination half-marathon that just happened to have the word “wine” in the title. That, and the fact that our oldest friends had moved there a year ago and were happy to host us in their daughter’s bedroom. Fred is always posting Instagrams of their bucolic deck overlooking the city, so I’d assumed after the race (on Day 2) we’d spend the week lazing about, drinking wine and eventually becoming bored. Santa Barbara, after all, offered neither the craziness of Los Angeles nor cosmopolitan glamour of San Francisco. Boy was I wrong.
It was one of those vacations where we ended up needing a vacation when we arrived home nine days later. Once we got started, we never stopped.
We were there during what locals call the “May Gray” (better, presumably, than the “June Gloom”). Yet the weather proved so unrelentingly perfect, with warm, sunny days and cool evenings, that the last thing we (read: I) wanted to do was sit around. More than once we went hiking in the Santa Ynez Mountains, and we also ran and rode a surrey bike (harder than it seems) along oceanside Cabrillo Boulevard.
Breaking with tradition, we also visited several of the city’s 20-plus museums, including its lush botanic garden, museum of natural history and the new MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation, which offers kids interactive learning experiences and their parents one of the best rooftop views of the city. It’d be a perfect spot for happy hours.
We’d so enjoyed the scenic backroad drive over the Santa Ynezes on The San Marcos Pass Road (California 154) to Solvang for my race, that we did it again one afternoon. Only this time we were destined for Los Olivos, a small and picture-perfect town full of tasting rooms, arty boutiques and farm-to-table restaurants. Home to a jazz and olive festival every June, it has one of the coolest general stores (housed in one of California’s first gas stations) and great bike trails.
Of course we toured the Old Mission of Santa Barbara, founded in 1786 by Spanish Franciscan missionaries and home to a beautiful church, historic cemetery, mausoleum and museum of historical art and artifacts. Given its location opposite the awesome Handlebar Coffee Roasters (with its amazing lattes and pastries), I also got my husband to amble with me through El Presidio State Historic Park. It was a military outpost dating to 1782 that played a vital role in Spain’s occupation of Alta, Calif., and is the city’s oldest building.
We had a bit more fun taking an elevator to the top of the grand, Spanish Colonial Revival courthouse, the showpiece of which is not its gorgeous hand-painted ceilings and giant murals but the observation deck in the clock tower that offers a spectacular panorama of the city, mountains and harbor. Though in an ironic twist, we ended up getting a parking ticket for parking in front of a library book dropoff.
Vacationing without children, we decided to splurge one night on dinner at Belmond El Encanto in the windy, steep Riviera neighborhood. It’s the perfect place to watch a golden-orange sun melt into the horizon, and the food, served under the stars on a terrace, was perfection. We also sipped cocktails at sunset on the terrace of the even more glamorous, fivestar Four Seasons resort, where rooms start at $1,000.
We hoped to spy a movie star or two, but our hunt for celebrities came up empty, as did our stakeout at The Honor Bar in the tony seaside community of Montecito, where actor Rob Lowe is said to hang out. No Oprah or Ellen Degeneres either, who own houses there.
Cheaper eats included the $1.75 tacos at Mony’s and a 10 a.m. bowl of “famous” pea soup at Andersen’s Pea Soup in Buellton on our way to Pence Ranch. Guess which one we enjoyed more.
And then there was the wine sampled in tasting rooms that ranged from sophisticated and elegant, such as Pence Ranch’s open-air Canyon Room in the Santa Rita hills, where a sun sail keeps the afternoon sun at bay, to the more lively Roblar Winery in Santa Ynez. That’s where ex-Los Angeles investigative reporter-turned-tasting-room-manager Billy Kissel regales customers with sometimes-racy “grape tales” meant to entertain as much as educate. The winery has a full kitchen if you plan on making an evening of it, and you also can picnic on the grass.
Santa Barbara offered so much — bike and hiking trails for the body, historic missions and military outposts for the mind, and well, one beautiful winery after another for the nerves — that the only thing hard about this trip was the drive back down to L.A. to catch our flight home.