Renew Your Mind

We celebrated our wedding anniversary by spending a weekend in Santa Barbara. We both don’t recall when the last time we’ve been up there so it was nice to get away without having to travel very far. When we were up in Mammoth over President’s day weekend we shared a chair lift with a gentleman who lived in Solvang. All we remember about him was that he was wearing a red jacket. We asked him for reccomendations for restaurants. He rattled off a long list of places he liked and a little bit about each place. I picked out a few that sounded interesting and commited them to memory.

The first place we visited was the Sunstone Winery in Santa Ynez. One of Eugenia’s co-workers recommended it for the scenery. It was about a mile off the highway and not very crowded. This was a plesant stop and the seeing the cave where they stored the wine was interesting. We both had some wine and bought a a couple of bottles that we liked before heading over to the Vineyard House. The Vineyard House was reccomended to use by the man in the red jacket ( ski lift buddy mentioned above). The service was excellent and the staff was friendly. The lunch was good but not great. I had a french dip and Eugenia had a turkey, bacon, avacado sandwitch. We had a feeling that dinners there were much better as we saw many people stopping by to check out the dinnner menu and making dinner reservations. I think I saw Tawny Little (news woman in Southern California) eating lunch there but I can’t be sure. Our next winery stop was the Gainey Vineyard (also reccomended by the man in the red jacket). This place was packed and is located just off the highway. There was an event there to support Muscular Dystrophy so I was dissapointed to find out that tours were cancelled. We shared a tasting as it was a little more pricey and Eugenia couldn’t handle much more alcohol. Eugenia found a wine she liked so we ended up with three more bottles before heading out. We’re not big wine drinkers so these five bottles will probably last us a year. At both vineyards the grapes weren’t growing so I was disappointed that I didn’t see any interesting photo opportunities.

We then headed back to Santa Barbara and checked into the Inn at East Beach. It wasn’t a fancy hotel (it was inexpensive) but it was cozy and clean. The only complaints we had was that the walls are thin so we heard a lot of the noise from outside (there is a field behind the inn where soccer games are played) and there are railroad tracks nearby but it’s not quite like it was in the movie, “My Cousin Vinny.” We drove over to State street and checked out the shops there. For dinner, we went to Sojourner Cafe (recommended by the man in the red jacket). What he failed to mention was that it was a wholesome/organic food place. There was no red meat to be found! It smelled really good though when we walked in and the food was very tasty. It was probably one of the healthier meals I’ve had in a while and I particularly liked the strawberry smoothie I had. I think the man in the red jacket’s recommendations were good picks. Thanks whoever you are!

Good news came last Friday as I was driving up to Mammoth. I received a phone call from the admissions director for the FEMBA program at UCLA. It was a nice surprise to get a personal phone call letting me know that I’ve been accepted.

Mammoth was great. It snowed both days we snowboarded but it was nice to ride some fresh powder. I got a new snowboard so I had to go back and make some adjustments before I was able to ride comfortably. On my first run on Saturday it took me about an hour to ride down. I had a hard time riding in knee deep fresh powder. Fresh powder is nice to fall on but it is difficult to get out of. The runs were much better once they were groomed. We broke down and bought face masks the second day although it wasn’t as windy on Sunday. The masks helped although they take some getting used to as one can start to feel claustrophobic. One thing I like about Mammoth is that even though you know it is crowded it doesn’t feel like it on the mountain. I’ve found that it people come in waves so if you wait for a group to pass you can have a run to yourself for the most part and not have to worry about anyone crashing into you. This was the first time I snowboarded two days in a row and my legs are feeling it today. Does anyone know what the deal is with the $100 for an entire weekend in Mammoth is? A lift operator asked me if I was interested, but I instinctually said no since it sounded like a scam, but I do remember other lift operators offering that deal before in years past but I never asked for more details since I was about to get onto the ski lift.

I did end up playing in my Monday night basketball game which we lost. I didn’t help by missing too many free throws in the second half. I’d like to blame the fact that my legs were tired after all that snowboarding and the 6 hour drive from Mammoth but my free throws haven’t been consistant lately.

Here’s a picture I took while on my Alaska Cruise that I’d like to share.