Create Every Day

This last weekend was very busy for Dore and I.  On Friday night we had some friends over for a grand Belgian Beer Fest!  We made fresh giant pretzels, potato and sausage stew, and tried out a ton of different Belgian beers.  All in all it was awesome.  I have to brag: I make a mean pretzel (well, Dore made the dough and I cooked the pretzels).

On Saturday we slept in nice and late.  We finally got up and went out to breakfast/lunch at IHOP.  Later in the afternoon we met up with our friend Lauren, who took us to a park out on Ellwood Mesa to see the monarch butterflies.  It is pretty late in the season, but there were still a ton of butterflies in the eucalyptus trees.  The park goes all the way out to the bluffs, so we walked out there and found a path down to the beach.  We arrived on the beach right as the sunlight was getting low and orange.  It was really beautiful.  There was an old weathered wooden breakwater fence on the beach that stretched for hundreds of yards.  The light was hitting it at a low angle, which made the texture of the wood stand out fantastically.  I was really having a good time taking photos.  I posted some of my photos on my Picasa page.

On Sunday, we met up with our friends Maria and Matt and went for a hike on the Jesusita Trail, which goes up into the foothills above Santa Barbara.  We made a couple of wrong turns along the way.  At one point we ended up at a fence with a sign that read, “You are already way too far from the trail.  Please respect private property.” (In case you coudn’t gather, California trails tend to have tons of offshoots with no markings.)  Sadly the sign did not actually tell us how to find the real trail. Finally, after much searching and reproachful looks from Dore we found the right trail and continued on our way.

We stopped after a while and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Oddly, it turned out that Maria and Matt and Dore and I had independently brought the same snack.  Apparently peanut butter and jelly is the perfect trail snack.  Hunger satisfied, we decided that we had had enough hiking for the day, and headed back down to the car.

When we got back to town we decided to reward ourselves with a meal at Dargain’s, an awesome Irish Pub downtown.  It was really nice walking down State street in the sun, and we all had a very nice time.

When Dore and I finally made it home, we were both exhausted, and dropped down for a nap almost immediately.  We got up after a while and lazed around the house for the rest of the evening.

Dore and I had quite a weekend!  On Saturday, we took a walk to the mission this weekend.  It was really nice, but I didn’t expect it to be quite as rigorous as it was.  I took my camera along with us, and managed to snap a couple of shots, but for the most part didn’t shoot too much. The lighting was pretty lame — it was the middle of the day — but despite that I managed to find a couple of shots that worked pretty well.

Santa Barbara Mission

View Down the Hill from Rocky Nook Park

On Sunday we went out for a bike ride.  We finally got Dore’s bike all put together and tuned up, so we rode all around downtown Santa Barbara.  We rode down to the beach and saw the weekly art fair, then we went out to Dargains for lunch.  It was delicious.  Afterwards we went back home and got cleaned up, then went over to Maria’s house for a scotch tasting.  I only took one single picture the whole day, but it actually came out very nicely.

Mmm... Scotch

This one works quite well as a black and white as well.