As Alcalde ambled his way southward at approximately the same speed as the California stagecoaches of yore, Lobo and I prepared the preparations for his arrival, which would kick off Phase 3 of the Santa Barbara excursion.
But I am getting ahead of the narrative.
Lobo and I purchased beer and foodstuffs at Trader José’s, then let the food sit in the hot car while Lobo ate lunch at the Habit in La Cumbre Plaza. I had already eaten at Shalhoob’s in the Public Market, where I also tried to buy a shirt. They were out of them, of course.
Lobo and I got to talking about Baskin-Robbins on Upper State, which led to a discussion of the Tee-Off restaurant, which led to a conversation with Evan and Suzanne, who recommended the Tee-Off, which led to our decision to go to the Tee-Off the following night, which led to us doing so.
I think I’d always assumed that the Tee-Off was some skeezy bar, but it’s a swanky prime rib restaurant that’s been there since 1956. Also a bar, hence the neon martini glass in the front. We had big old honkin’ 10-ounce prime ribs, and Lobo didn’t finish his. Weird. He’s definitely slipping in his dotage.
The next morning we were back in Ontare Plaza at the crack of earliness to procure Spudnuts and drive to Hendry’s beach, where we walked along the beach as the tide came in. We didn’t even make it to the point before we had to turn around. It was not well-timed, tide-wise.
After a busy morning of sitting around, we went downtown to reconstruct our Inter-Block Route from the Summer of ’76, and let me tell you, that was a white-knuckle thrill ride of of ambling and meandering. There are no longer any pass-throughs from Micheltorena or Sola, but from Arlington Ave. on we were unimpeded. We were even able to extend it past its previous terminus of Ortega and forge through all the way to Haley! Then we wandered back to the car.
Not only that, but we even found Yonder Place, although the door was locked.
We went home and sat around some more and eventually Alcalde showed up, and we begun Phase 3(a) of the Santa Barbara Excursion – the MesaMash.
NB: The official mascot of the MesaMash is Humphrey the Owl, who appears on the roof nightly to watch for mice or leezards or whatever it is that owls eat.
