Oct 4 - 5

Santa Barbara

October 4:  Day At Sea

At the end of our day in San Francisco Peggy felt like she'd already had too much to eat and so it was just the twin sisters and I that had dinner at the Pinnacle Grill, the second specialty restaurant on board the Oosterdam.  It was a great evening and one of the highlights came when Kim ordered the "Clothesline of Bacon" - which you see in front of us.....

The next day we spent the entire day at sea, and two things of note about the sailing:  (1) we seemed to be crawling at a very slow pace all day, and (2) the water was pretty rough with big waves making for several instances that you could "feel the motion" as it's said on a cruise ship.  But it was a thoroughly relaxing day and I spent a great deal of time on our veranda just watching the ocean go by and reading my book.

October 5:  Santa Barbara

Today is our youngest son, Brad's birthday....happy birthday buddy!  We arrived at about 8 am in the morning and within about an hour the tenders were ready to head to shore.  About a week prior to our leaving Fort Lauderdale we'd received notice from Holland America that our excursion for today, a whale watching adventure had been canceled.  After looking over the other options Kim and I decided we'd just spend the day wandering around the town.  Then a couple days later I posted on Facebook that we were just a few days out from our next adventure, the Pacific Coast Cruise when I received a message back from one of our great friends, Patti.  We'd met Patti on our Viking Oceans adventure to Scotland, Norway, and Iceland and had become very fond of her.  She and I have remained friends through social media.  So, she messaged me, asking where we would be because she lived in the area and if we had time she'd love to see us.  I messaged back that ironically we had a full "free day" in Santa Barbara if that wasn't too far a drive.  She said it was about two hours but she'd made that drive before and it would be a good getaway adventure for her.  So today, when we got off the tender she was waiting for us!

We first wandered down the shoreline and out to the edge of Stearns Wharf; then we wandered around town while talking non-stop.  We found our way back to Patti's car and drove a few miles up the road to a Mexican restaurant one of Patti's friends had recommended and had a wonderfully leisurely lunch while talking non-stop.  Just an awesome day.  

Stearns Wharf

Santa Barbara Scenes

Cava Restaurant

Heading Back To The Oosterdam

We leave Santa Barbara this evening and will be docking in San Diego tomorrow morning to end the cruise adventure.  We have a transfer to the San Diego airport where we've rented a car and we'll drive up the coast about 90 minutes to arrive at Jeff's home for a nearly week-long visit with our California family!