First let me remedy an egregious oversight from last week — Natalie lost her 2nd front tooth:
We had a flaky internet connection at the campsite in San Luis Obispo, so twice I drove a few miles down the road into town where it was 4G utopia at one of the many coffee shops:
It was a short week, however. We broke camp on Thursday and headed to Santa Barbara so Amy could run in a half-marathon. There were some very steep hills descending into Santa Barbara, and the brakes on the RV were smoking by the time we reached town. Fortunately, we were only about a mile away from the campsite, so we coasted into the RV park and let everything cool down.
The next day, I took the RV to John Hurley Automotive in Santa Barbara, CA. It’s a bit discomforting to see one’s RV home in such a precarious position, but it turns out I was in very good hands:
Hands down, this was the best automotive repair experience I’ve had. It turned out that my brakes were a-ok; only 10% wear (they just got overheated — nothing damaged). And John here gave me some great RV-mountain-driving tips to keep the brakes from overheating again. And all that only cost me $56. Whenever I have car or RV troubles again, I hope I’m in Santa Barbara so I can go to John. (Amy’s family: does this not look like Uncle Steve??)
The highlight of the week, however, was meeting up with my Uncle Walter and Aunt Sue (Walter would be running the race with Amy). They came over for dinner a couple times, cozy RV-style. It was nice to have some company and spend time with family that we don’t see enough:
Amy and Walter (red nose) on the home stretch of their half-marathon:
It was striking how great Amy looked after this race compared to her full marathon in Missoula, MT back in July:
Just some around-town scenery of Santa Barbara. Very California-y.
From atop the tower at the Santa Barbara courthouse (which is an amazing building, btw):
The old Mission Santa Barbara, dating from the early 1700’s:
This was our neighbor at the RV park in Santa Barbara. I’ve seen a lot of RVs on this trip, but this was my favorite. And yes, that’s a pop-out balcony. Must have cost huuundreds.
Before leaving Santa Barbara this morning, we had a nice breakfast as Joe’s Cafe, a great place to get pancakes with your choice of blueberries, bananas, or chocolate. By special request, Walter ordered pancakes with blueberries, bananas, AND chocolate:
This afternoon we drove down Highway 1 through Malibu, which offered some interesting sights: big houses on hills, fast cars, and surfer dudes. It was a great drive. We reached our RV park in LA mid afternoon. This is where we’ll stay all week:
Since we got to our spot for the week so early, we had time to do some biking along the beach:
…and my girls played HARD on the sand dunes until the sun went down:
Some would consider being right next to LAX a downside, what with planes roaring overhead every couple minutes and all:
But not Emily. Ever since the Boeing tour in Everett Washington, she’s been fascinated with airplanes, especially jumbo jets like the 747. She started a ledger today to keep track of all of the planes she sees flying overhead:
It should be a great week: I’m cutting out of work early tomorrow to go see a Jay Leno taping, we’ll be hanging out more with Walter and Sue, I’ll be seeing my cousin Jason who lives in LA, we have a camping spot that overlooks the ocean, and we’ll get to see more of this crazy city (which by the way has awesome 4G).