Sleepless in........Santa Barbara

Saturday 23rd November

So we managed to do it again.....find the perfect motel and then have noisy neighbours.  In this case it was upstairs, stamping around, laughing and talking loudly.  Fortunately at about 11pm they went out and we enjoyed 4 and a half hours of peace and quiet until they arrived back, crashing up the stairs, banging the doors, dropping things and talking loudly at 3.30am. This only went on for 10 minutes or so and then peace again descended just long enough to lull us into a false sense of security, but at 5.15am they started having a very loud conversation which just went on and on.  Martin called reception twice but it was about an hour later before they finally shut up and we managed to get a bit of sleep.

Consequently we were late getting up and going out.  On our way we stopped at reception to see if the noisy pair were staying another night in which case we were going to insist on a change of room.  The manager assured us they were checking out and that any untoward noise is not tolerated after 10pm!!  I wish he had told them the same thing!

We drove down and parked near Stearn's Pier to do a short, fast run on the flat cycle/walking path along the shore.  We did a mile out and back warm up towards Leadbetter beach and then a mile out and back in the other direction at 6.30 pace.....which felt really hard.  After that we jogged out to the end of the pier and back to cool down.  It was quite a nice morning but it looked much less cloudy further west so we decided to head for Goleta and check out the beach there.

A mandatory stop for coffee and provisions delayed us slightly as did some navigational challenges but we eventually arrived, parked and set off along the beach.  Goleta is not as attractive as either Hendry or Leadbetter but it was not really quite nice enough for lounging on the beach anyway so we set off to walk towards Hendry and find somewhere we could have lunch. The tide was quite high so once we got to the end of Goleta beach itself quite a lot of rock climbing and scrambling ensued until we reached a sheltered and private little cove where we stopped for lunch.  The sun was still out and for a while it was lovely and after we had eaten we continued along the beach for a while hoping that there would be some way up onto the cliff but the only steps we found were clearly marked private so eventually we decided to retrace our steps.

Cloud had blown in from the north and it had got rather chilly so we were pleased to arrive back at the car. It was my turn for daily driving practice and we set off back to Santa Barbara looking for a park with trees so that we could do some slack lining. We arrived at Oak Park and after walking all the way round it came back to where we had parked and used two trees by the road.  They were perfect except for being so public; I was hoping to find somewhere a little more secluded but actually no one seemed to take any notice of us.  I think that Americans are used to a lot more bizarre behaviour than a middle aged English couple taking turns to try and balance on a line strung between trees!  Considering the very small amount of practice we've had we've both improved quite a lot, especially Martin who made it from end to end several times.  I was a bit frustrated that my own progress was slower but I can now get on the line without having to hold on, balance quite well on one or two feet and take one step before I fall off.

It's actually quite tiring on the legs so after about an hour we packed up and headed back to the hotel for a swim in the pool followed by the very necessary hot shower to defrost afterwards.  Later on we strolled a mile or so up State Street to the Flavor of India to satisfy Martin's craving for spicy food, followed by an early night to try and catch up on some of last night's sleep.