Dialing back to the Santa Barbara weekend again (and more to come)...
The day we arrived in Santa Barbara, the weather was gorgeous. Sunny, mildly warm. Fantastic. My ideal spring in SoCal. The next day? June Gloom.
We joked about it a bunch with any of the locals we talked with, but in truth, we're fine with it. I can happily avoid hot weather as long as possible, and the June Gloom has actually brought ever so slight precipitation. California needs it! Keep it going, please.
Our Sunday was meant to be a relaxing day, and it was. Afternoon massages were booked at the hotel, plus dinner later on. That left time after brunch (also at the hotel) to venture out a little, but not too far. So, we walked down to the Santa Barbara Mission.
I won't get into the history of the California missions here because 1) I don't know it at all, and 2) it merits deeper discuss of conquest and colonialism. Let's not glamourize the missions, but let's admire the structures and understand the history at least a little. Van
and I managed some of the former and very little of the latter, I confess. We simply walked down, took some photos of the building
in among the moderate crowd, looked at some of the examples for the chalk art festival,
and shopped in the store. We decided against paying the frankly not cheap ticket to check out the complex and opted instead to stay mostly outside, visiting the rose garden nearby,
and then wandering through the neighbourhood between the mission and the hotel up the hill.
A shame. A wasted opportunity to learn, I think. I still didn't want to pay for the ticket, but the missions have been an important part of early colonial California history. Maybe we should have explored further.
Ah well, at least the flowers we encountered were interesting and lovely!
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