santa barbara, ca

that's the batting cage tacos! they are good. and it's fun to have a drink and do a terrible job attempting to hit home runs after.

should be a good spot. east beach tends to be less crowded. it's where most of the regular volleyball happens. the pavillion was under construction, but it may be done now? tri-county produce is a good little grocer. Habit Burger is good. You'll have solid mexican food up milpas along with the best trader joes. brand new Sprouts nearby. you can also walk cabrillo to the funk zone or ride bikes to butterfly beach and montecito.

you'll have many options for outdoor hanging. the thin strip of grass between the beach and cabrillo, the bird refuge, and the zoo is sort of like a nice park. convivo is maybe a bit expensive when you have so much cheap food nearby, but it's good. SB farmers market would also be an easy bike ride.

for somebody that prefers a small city feel, i'd consider this new spot an upgrade

Yeah if I had to move home again I’d try and get in around milpas

Yeah the location is definitely more our speed than up in the hills! Relieved to have something squared away, it was getting a little close for comfort. Our bikes will be in storage in DC until we buy, bet I can rent something or like steal one from an Isla Vista group house.

drove by east beach this morning, and the pavilion appears to be finished. the three months you're over there will be "rainy season", but there will be sunny days. temperature should never get too hot again, though. autumn in santa barbara feels like it lasts from now until spring. i absolutely love autumn, and this may be why i can't leave.

and why I am kicking myself that I have spent so much time in the swamp!

ok random question: is there an SB track with a good springy surface that the public can use? Like maybe at the high school?

I'm almost a year out from mega knee surgery and am finally *almost* to the point of being able to jog a bit, but the PT recommends a nice forgiving surface at first, not concrete or asphalt. Here in DC we can use the Sidwell Friends school track which is nice enough for presidents' kids, so good enough for me obv.

La Playa Stadium at SBCC is a very popular spot. It might be closed right now due to the pandemic.

UCSB also will have this, but I'm not sure if it's open to the public.

I've noticed some people like to jog on the beach, close to the water where the sand is firm.

All that. Also if you want to try a thing pedal to the butterfly refuge and x-country to the beach

DPHS has a tartan track but not sure if it's open to the public.

I will check those out, thanks.

Apparently spouse is ready to embrace small(er) town living and wants to go to high school football games on Friday nights (he can't help it he's from Texas). Which school should he root for? I'm gonna get down with Goleta.

San Marcos

Cate School in the hills above the Rincon. Both David Crosby (pulled the electrical breakers and cut off power to the entire school, stealing common area TV, etc.) & Stephen Malkmus (mushrooms) were both expelled from.

*pffft*

LOOK OUT SANTA BARBARA I AM COMING FOR YOU IN T MINUS 48 HOURS

What is good to eat in Goleta, I will be there a lot with pony at Glen Annie

you could get your first Freebird burrito? I don't understand the love for Super Cuca's, rare as it seems. Lilly's tacos will be cheap and just down the road (pork and beef variations >> chicken, so maybe avoid if you are a chicken taco person). Noodle City has good, cheap pho, broken rice (rec #22), and vermicelli (#41). The original Habit Burger is in downtown Goleta. I've heard good things about Neighbor Tim's BBQ (stay away from other BBQ). Decent local brewery nearby Tim's as well.

Tim's is a food truck next to brewery. you order online. looks like weekend hours might be dinner only.

I also like nikka ramen down calle real

I'M THE GOD OF GOLETA BABY

(sorry)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LzaHWkkKYk

In other moving to santa barbara news, any contractor recommendations or warnings? Plan to knock out a kitchen and bathroom reno post haste.

our experiences have been middling. I'd ask your realtor.

Can ya'll tell me about the rainy season? Is it even called that? When does it happen? What is it like? Disclosures report that our new SB street floods and to park the car up the hill (what hill, I don't even know) when it rains.

Why yes, I'm buying a house with "issues."

In better news, we had a different foundation inspector in yesterday and he did not see "major red flags," so I guess there is that.

winter is the "rainy season". It's the only time it rains all year. no storms, but the rain can be heavy. If drainage is poorly designed, it rains enough that water can collect. I'm not sure what is meant by "the street floods". Some streets are curved with "gutters" on the sides where water flows down. If a street floods, that implies it is at a local minimum elevation or something weird. Mission St is a bit like that.

worsst flooding is usually at the castillo 101 underpass

everyone generally happy about rain, as SB is peak beautiful when green and the lakes are full. Only bad when you have heavy rain after an off season wildfire that damages the soil.

I mean there are things meteorologists call storms in winter but yeah the weird thing about coastal Southern California weather is there is basically no lightning ever.

welcome, quincie and partner! Congrats on finding one of the best spots to live in this here world. Now please don't tell anyone.

Thank you! I will tell everyone back on the lesser coast that it is awful here and they should stay put :)

We drove around yesterday with stupid grins on our faces :)

I keep thinking "oh I hope I get to do X on this trip" and then remembering this is not trip--this is *home* now.

Gonna be hard to go back to work tomorrow when "home" feels like a vacation destination.

Oh and we got to see the house we bought yesterday, and we looooooooove it.

aaaaaaay

If ya'll see a tall brunette driving a white pickup with Massachusetts plates (a rental, natch), that's me. Wave me over!

Later, if ya'll see a tall brunette driving a beat-up 12-year-old gray camry with DC plates (our own jalopy, natch), that's me. Wave me over!

Even later (we close next month and will be under construction for at least a month after that), we would love to have ilxs near and far come hang in the garden.

quincie, feel free to complain about this 1 day of rain and drive so slowly on the 101.

Everyone at the barn was freaking out about "horses standing in mud OMG" and I'm like whatevs, my pony has been through so much worse!

We can't get over how awesome this place is.

Except for the DMV but hey, show me a DMV that doesn't suck.

(And it actually wasn't that bad, just not as superior as the weather, the food, the scenery, etc.)

Barnmate also advised "do NOT drive on the 101, stick to side roads!" and I'm like lady I have spun cars on black ice on Pittsburgh hills, I think I can handle the 101 today.

I felt the same way until I realised who I was sharing the roads with when driving in Southern California.

I can relate, but I also imagine LA is another level. xp happy to hear you are still enjoying it out here. we are still settling in after our big move 1 mile up the road. we recently learned that our crawl space smells awful!

I have become rather intimate with our crawl space myself, given that I can see it through the rotten subflooring.

What started as a kitchen/bath reno has turned into a complete gut reno of the whole house, which is currently down to studs and said rotten subflooring (which itself will be replaced along with. . . pretty much absolutely everything else).

Moving into Milpas rental #2 next week, will be there for an indeterminate amount of time.

Will see how SB permitting office compares to SB DMV.

ooo wow. We are also doing an extensive reno of a portion. Our subfloor might be ok, but we have to replace all posts and piers and pour some new perimeter foundation. And we also have to fix the terrible compost smell. The internet seems to think you do this by either improving ventilation or removing ventialtion entirely and adding moisture barrier. These two things are opposites so I'm worried it's all bad.

Remember the good old days when it was just about retaining walls? :)

We knew the reno situation could snowball once we started pulling things out. Once it was clear that the subfloors should be replaced, then it meant drywall had to come down, and once that was the walls were opened up, why not go ahead and vault the ceiling? And we knew we needed to replace the knob and tube electrical for safety--easier now that it is all exposed.

I have not yet started to wrap my head around stuff I'd like to do outside. Does CA even have a lottery? Need to get some more cash flow going. I guess there is always the Chumash casino.

But back to adventures on Milpas: we decided that we are in the hood, we will eat at each and every restaurant from top of the street to ocean.

Unfortunately, this includes a Jack In the Box and a Carl's Jr.

Plenty of good stuff to offset those, thankfully.

KFC and Winchell's!

There's 4 or so places I've not had yet. Always wondered about Cesar's.