Bikin', hikin' and hangin with the stars!

As a favor to our readers back home in Michigan, I promise to not even mention the weather in this post. It just doesn't seem to change from day to day;)

For the past few days we have been mixing it up between road, mountain biking and hiking. Nice road rides along the ocean. Hellacious Mountain bike rides in the mountains(4 miles, 1,100 Ft of elevation gain!). Hiking up in the mountains. Can you see the theme developing here? We are really falling in love with being in the mountains! Of course, when we decide to land, we won't be able to include the ocean in that equation as we are a few million short of the few millions it takes to be anywhere near the ocean! However, we don't have a problem with settling with just mountains!

On Saturday, after an early morning hike in the mountains, we went to the Santa Barbara Farmers' Market to see Laura's aunt Carolyn in action, peddling their jams and olive oils. They seem to be pretty popular among the SB locals!



unfortunately, my close-up pics turned out all blurry, this was the only one worth posting. Anyway, after the Farmers market, we took Carolyn and George over to Santa Barbara Shellfish Company (see previous postings) as a way of saying thank-you for allowing us to park our coach on their property (and saving us a TON of money in the process!)

Did we mention the food? Besides Laura's step-mom, Kum Su, being an outstanding cook. We have visited some wonderful restaurants! Friday night, we visited Arigato Sushi Bar, without question the largest assortment of sushi we have ever experienced. Among the typical tuna and salmon, they had fois gras and kobe nigiri, outstanding! Saturday night we hit a wonderful Italian restauraunt (there seems to be more Italian in SB then any other type?) Today, Sunday, we plan to hit the local Korean restaurant for some Be-Bim-Bop for lunch. Later for dinner, Laura and I will be cooking in for everyone, grilling up some salmon steaks and vegetables!

For the past few Sunday's Mike and Kum Su's neighbor has been coming up for Apple Fritters, coffee and good conversation. We joined them this morning, as we needed a break from the early morning mountain hikes. Their neighbor looked familiar, but just could not put my finger on it?



I know what your thinking, and no, not the guy on the right! Anthony Zerbe, the actor on the left, played Councillor Hamann in all the 'Matrix' movies! He also had parts in Cool Hand Luke and Papillon, plus a bunch of other movies, primarily in the late 70's to mid 80's(he always seems to be cast as the bad guy, that's cool!). Anthony was a wonderful, down to earth guy. He was very interested in our adventure. Many of the places he said he would consider living, other then SB of course(Everyone that lives here believes it is the greatest place in the US!), are on our short list of places we are considering; Asheville, Santa FE, Flagstaff, Durango and Portland!

Besides Anthony, apparently Chistopher Lloyd (Dr. Emmit Brown, Back to Future, Jim on Taxi!) lives near by. However, he was out of town for the holiday! Too bad, it would have been interesting to meet him! Also, Oprah does a Friday hike on the same trails we have been hiking on; but she appears to have spent the holiday in Chicago. Which is OK with locals. It appears the big O is not their favorite local celeb?

So, now we get ready to head south. Monday, we will pick-up the coach from its resting spot (it was a treat to sleep in a real bed, with a real shower for the past week) and head towards Malibu. We will be there for the coming week and visit with another one of Laura's aunts who lives in Santa Monica. We will then start heading towards Las Vegas to prepare for the trip home to Michigan for the holidays! We are looking forward to seeing everyone back home! However, not so sure we looking forward to weather, based on what we have seen on the internet!

Look for post from Malibu, coming soon!

Rich