Birthday weekend was a success! In case you missed it, I had a trip planned about 6 months ago to Big Sur for my birthday, and the week of, a landslide took out the only road in. You can't make it up. We had to quickly pivot, so we chose the Santa Barbara area. We were planning to go there for my birthday in 2020, but you know why that was cancelled. It was such a nice relaxing trip, but I was definitely happy to be back home to see my girl!
I had intended to try a lot of food spots, but our resort had food, so we really hung out there and ate most of our meals there with the exception of a couple of coffee spots. We hit Bree'Osh in Montecito for a coffee and pastry and Dune Coffee on State Street.
The first day we were there we went to the Funk Zone (just the name of an area) and checked out a vintage store called Blue Door. It was super cool, and I did get a jacket there.
The morning of my birthday we hiked to natural hot springs (Hot Springs Canyon). Once we got to the spot where the hot springs were supposed to be, we saw a rock slide. There was no way in. We were bummed, and started to go back down the hill. BUT we saw people crossing water in a different area, and it was a different way in. Thank goodness we saw those people! The hot springs were cool. Multiple little pools of super blue water-with that gross sulfur stink!
I did get a massage which was glorious. The bed had a breast plate. So it dips down in the chest area...this is huge for women with a larger chest. For years its been uncomfortable to lay on my stomach for a massage. I hope all places get these!
We had a nice dinner, and I did have a bunch of people ask where my yellow dress was from. It's a couple of years old from & Other Stories.
Saturday we were gonna go to the Botanical Garden, but apparently you have to get reservations in advance, so I grabbed tickets for Sunday, and we went to Butterfly Beach instead.
We also checked out State Street which is a popular area to walk for shopping. It was cute, but I didn't get anything. I did really like a store there called Sirena and a super cool consignment store with higher end items called Renaissance!
Sunday we did make it to the Botanical Garden which was amazing. It's super bloom time in California, so there were so many beautiful wild flowers, and the Poppies were the stars of the show!
I was 99% positive Christina Aguilera was at the same place we dined at on Friday night, but I couldn't get a good view of her, but Sunday night, Adam Levine was definitely there (Stone House-AMAZING FOOD). I took this creeper photo-and one other that's actually a bit better you can see on my Instagram stories. AND everyone keeps asking who he was with. He was with 2 of his daughters and an older woman. He was very cute with his girls. They were putting spoons on their noses etc.
Monday we drove to LA for our flight, and my friend Raven lives there now. She used to do nights on KDWB. We met her at Manhattan Beach for a bit!
It was nice to get some consistent sun, but I'm happy to be back. I really wanted to go to the Channel Islands, but they were closed while we were there, and we were gonna kayak, but the ferry rides were sold out. SO make sure to book things in advance if you go.
A few spots that were on my list that we didn't get to:
Coffee/Breakfast: Handlebar, Helena, Jeanine's, Dart
Dinner: Lark, Bettina, Tre Lune
Fun: Red Piano Bar