oh goodness, just realized i never published THIS post. you all can have a wee break from reading about tokyo and revisit southern california in april....
after lunch in san luis obispo, we attempted to drive to lompoc; for some reason the map kept changing on us, and didn't correspond at all to where the california state highway system thought lompoc should be, but never mind, the drive was gorgeous, and we stopped at a roadside fruit stand and bought three massive punnets of strawberries from an old man in a big hat which kept us going. we drove through guadalupe, a dusty little outpost that nearly fit my criterion of no starbucks/walmart/barnes and noble/etc but it didn't have much of anything else either - just a wide street with some shops that went out of business in 1952 and forgot to tell anyone. once we got to lompoc we forgot why it was that we were supposed to be going there - something to do with swallows? no, that's san juan capistrano - but as it turns out the beach just beyond lompoc is quite fabuloso and totally deserted. we went on a tromp along the beach and saw lots of birds - several places we have been are nesting sites for snowy plovers, which are apparently making a comeback, so yay hooray for the snowy plover (not that i knew what a snowy plover was before this holiday). i lay in the sand and read my book (swallowdale, in an incongruously adult looking edition, loan courtesy of Mr. Meep, who i am gratified to find out enjoys them as much as i do) and got sand in my ears (fine) and in my camera (less fine, but i am hoping that my camera makes as confident a comeback as the snowy plover.
after a snooze on the beach, we continued on our way towards santa barbara, stopping at la purisima mision de la virgen de somewhere, which was kind of a random unintended detour but i think may in the end have been one of most interesting little cultural thingies we have seen so far. it's a not-so-little spanish mission in the middle of nowhere, which really helps, and the visitor center at the entrance was closed, which really helped as well because it meant that there was almost nobody there and we could just wander around and stick our noses into things and probably touch things that we weren't supposed to, etc., and they had done a very nice job of making it feel as if the sixteenth century spanish missionaries had just put down their things and wandered off but would be back any moment.
after all that, we went onto santa barbara, where we checked in to our relatively tatty motel on state street, and then went out to indian food and then home to BED.
wednesday- santa barbara mission, lunch at natural cafe, walk along santa barbara beach, birdwatching, icecream, botanic garden, home for dinner in bed (looxury!).
thursday - getty museum wowee, sushi dinner w/ nice friend in LA, and then to best western in san fernando where my mother wanted to move in
friday - long drive home to san francisco past scary industrial agricultural areas, reinforcing belief in only eating organic food and, if you are going to eat meat, definitely only meat from happy cows etc.
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