Author Archives: Tony

Santa Barbara and Los Olivos

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November 20, 2012 – After a fun day of exploring Los Angeles, we decided to make our way west to explore Santa Barbara and the town of Los Olivos.  We ate a quick breakfast at the Hampton Inn, and then got on the road towards the Santa Barbara Mission.

Santa Barbara Mission

A tour of the Santa Barbara Mission is well worth it.

The Mission tour is a self-guided tour, with an optional video introduction that cycles through a few different programs.  After the Mission, we parked at Stearns Wharf for lunch, and to walk the waterfront.  The wharf is a fun walk if you like waterfront areas, and they do have a few good places to grab seafood to go.  We opted for the Moby Dick fish & chips takeout special.

No Mr. Pelican, our fish & chips is not for you.

No Mr. Pelican, our fish & chips is not for you.

Next, we drove over to Los Olivos to sample some wine, and some olive oil. (Hey, it is named ‘the olives’ after all.  How can you not sample some olive oil?)  We enjoyed our wine tasting at Carhartt Vineyard, and had some nice habanero-infused olive oil at a local tasting room.  We ended the visit by getting some espresso beverages at Corner House Coffee.

Returning to Boston

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September 3, 2012 - On Monday we drove back to Boston, stopping by the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island. We thought we’d cross over to PEI, but didn’t want to pay the $40+ dollar toll to only stay on the island for a few minutes. It’s free to drive to PEI, but you pay a toll to get off the island. The 8 mile long bridge was finished in 1997, and cost $1.3 billion Canadian dollars; before the bridge barges and ice boats were used to ferry people and goods back and forth across the strait.

Bridge To PEI

The drive to Prince Edward Island will have to wait.

Instead we got lunch at the visitor center (sandwiches and blueberry cobbler, which was more like a shortcake… the food was warm but we weren’t impressed, it was akin to mediocre diner food) and then checked out the little wildlife area by the shore, Cape Jourimain Nature Centre. We saw 4 eiders bobbing in the water, and had a great view of the bridge.

Blueberry

Yes, this blueberry statue does exist.

The rest of the drive back was uneventful, full of Tim Horton’s and a brief stop to buy wild blueberries (and get pictures of a blueberry statue) in Canada’s wild blueberry capital of Oxford. Traffic was almost nonexistent, though we weren’t sure if that was because most tourists were back home or if few people were going all the way up to Canada for the holiday weekend. Overall we had a great trip and are looking forward to exploring more areas in Canada. One word of warning, though, it might be difficult to get money from gas station ATMs, though our American bank card worked fine at Canadian bank ATMs.