In Santa Barbara for the first time since 2011, I ubered to pick up my Turo car, then checked into the Oasis motel on State near Las Positas, the same place I stayed 12 years ago.
For dinner I walked to 3771 State Street, former home of Char West, to pay homage to the Creek of Life and have dinner at Taqueria la Única. Some have impugned the quality and prices of T la Ú, but I liked their tacos al pastor and think that maybe some people could try being a little less complainy sometimes.
The next day I drove out to Ellwood, took a picture of the Barnsdall-Rio Grande gas station (still in a state of sad decay), then hiked through the Ellwood Butterfly Preserve. The scent of the eucalyptus trees was an instant childhood flashback. The butterflies won’t show up for another month, but it was a pleasant walk, and without even trying I emerged from the woods at the end of Coronado Drive, where I lived from 1968-1970. My old house has been painted sometime in the last half century, but otherwise looks the same.
I spent most of the rest of the day downtown, wandering around and refreshing my memory on where things are, starting with the Courthouse Tower and working my way down State. State Street below Victoria is a combination of bustling and empty, the same problem it’s had for decades, only now they’ve made it pedestrian-only except for cross traffic.
I paid my respects to the late Santa Barbara News-Press and had a saison at Third Window Brewery. I was going to buy a shirt, but they didn’t have the kind I wanted. Third Window is on Haley Street, just a few blocks from Mac’s Grog ‘n’ Grog, where I called my mom from a pay phone when I was nine years old because I was too tired to ride my bike home, and I got in trouble because I wasn’t supposed to be down on Haley.
Down on Haley, Haley Street
— Nerf Herder, “Down on Haley”
Where the drugs are easy and the sex is cheap
You never know just who you’ll meet
On Haley!
The next day I met Lobo and Mrs. Lobo at the Santa Barbara Public Market, one of the nicer additions to the downtown area. It’s on the site of the former Vons/Safeway on Victoria and Chapala. Mrs. Lobo had a butternut squash taco, which is an actual thing that exists in this world. I had beef skewers from Three Monkeys.
After some confusion over what day it was and who was where when, it was determined that I should check out of Oasis a day early and move into Casa Mesa the next day, after Mrs. Lobo ditched Lobo for the second time in as many weeks. That left me with a few extra hours the next morning after checkout, so I took the tour at the Mission.
The Mission gift shop sells containers for holy water, so I bought a small one with St. Barbara on it. I was going to just fill it up at the water fountain outside, on the theory that water from the Mission water fountain would still be pretty holy, just by virtue of running through the Mission pipes, and anyway how much holiness do I really need? But the cashier asked me if I wanted it filled, and there was no extra charge, so I ended up with the full complement of holiness. For all I know, they just filled it at the water fountain anyway, but I’m no worse off, and it didn’t cost any extra. And the container is small enough to be within TSA limits.
These are the types of things you need to keep in mind if you want to be a savvy consumer of holy relics.
I had intended to go to the Presidio, and in fact I did go to the Presidio, but the cashier was talking to the British couple in front of me, and going on at great length about Santa Barbara history. After several minutes of this, I thought she was wrapping up, but she came up with a map she wanted to show them in another room, so I could see I was never going to get to buy a ticket and I left.
Subsequently I met Lobo in the BevMo parking lot and began Phase 2 of the Santa Barbara Excursion.