January 17, 2005: Vacation Santa Barbara: Part One

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January 17, 2005
Vacation Santa Barbara
Part One

I returned from my Santa Barbara trip late last night. It was a wonderful weekend - the weather was sunny and warm, the food and beverages were delicious (although hazardous), and the company was, as always, excellent! I met up with Jewel at the Lane Bryant store where I promptly spent an enormous amount of money on tons of pink clothes. And, I opened a credit card account, mostly because one of the sales girls said they would be opening an LB store in SLO by the end of this year. That makes me more excited than it should. I should be looking forward to not being able to shop in LB. Maybe someday I will.

After shopping, we stopped by Red Robin for onion rings (My big mistake; I ended up suffering terribly because of those onions!) and chicken strips with fries, then went to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, where I had a yummy English Breakfast Tea Latte, while we waited for our room to be ready. (Below is actually a picture of a couple lattes we had on Sunday, sorry for the confusion!)

It was here Jewel introduced me to the joy that is Gin Rummy. I've played Gin with my mom and grandma before, but never Rummy. To say we were a wee bit addicted to it is putting it mildly. Over the course of the weekend we played Gin Rummy in our room, at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, in the bar at the Red Robin, in Borders Cafe, and at a sidewalk cafe until it was too dark to play.

The highlight of the weekend, I would have to say, was having Afternoon Tea at the Four Seasons Santa Barbara.

We enjoyed delicious tea (I had Earl Grey and Jewel had Darjeeling), and some scrumptious finger foods!

When we were ready to leave, we went across the street to watch the sunset. It was really beautiful! The perfect ending to a perfect day.