Last weekend, I abandoned my husband and three kids and jetted off to Santa Barbara for the lowest-key “lost” weekend ever to be kinda/sorta misplaced.
Okay, fine. P.J. was with me when I booked the tickets. He practically shoved me out the door. Because he knew- and I know- that when two important people in your life request a getaway, you go away (with them).
Kat and Annie were among my very first Chicago pals. We were all of us recent East Coast college grads, even more recent transplants to the city, and a thousand and seven percent certain that we’d be earning money from our theatre degrees within weeks, tops. (…It took a little bit longer than that.) They loved me despite the fact that I was a neurotic recent theatre grad and then continued to take my calls into my 30s. But life happened- and kept happening- and we became Far-Flung Friends. Annie became a Southern Cali gal, Kat took the Pacific Northwest by storm, and me? Oh, I’m still here. (…I never really did know when to leave a party.)
All three of us have recently surfed and floundered through some pretty rough years, so when a text chain went beyond “We should make a trip happen” to “No, for real, you guys- I found a good price on tickets and a home rental,” we booked it.
And so after a planes, trains, and automobiles dance for exactly 12 hours (during which time I read an entire novel from wheels-up to wheels-down meaning, you know, that I got over that whole guilt/stress thing), we ended up in Santa Barbara. (H/t to Annie’s husband Jared, who acted as chauffeur extraordinaire for the LAX leg, and to Annie, who acted as the designated driver/driver driver for the rest of the time- did I mention that Annie’s 8 months pregnant with her second child? Road trip!)
Speaking of our rental house, Annie found a great one. It’s here. And it was adorable. It slept four; or rather, one pregnant gal (with passenger) whom we insisted take the real, actual, king-sized bed, one gal who slept on a daybed piled a mile high with pillows, and one gal whose trundle dreams had finally, actually come true. (Guess which pathetically ecstatic member of the party I was.) Our place was in the center of town- 2 blocks from the main shopping drag, and an easy 5 block walk to the shore.
We antiqued. (Or rather, I dragged the girls into an emporium of awesome called Antique Alley where my friends gamely tried on sunglasses while I wept over miniature antique cats. I bought one. For Suzy. Which she promptly broke in excitement within thirty-four seconds of holding the darned thing. I still consider it a win.) We wined. We dined. We Mexican-fooded and Margarita’d. We sat in the moonlit patio of our place and caught up on each other’s lives to the soundtrack of an iPhone mix, a bubbling fountain, and the sporadic traffic of this (already awesome) beach town.
We were in bed by roughly 10pm.
The next day, I was up by 8am (even with the time change, what the hell is wrong with me). We explored shops, art galleries, winding cobblestone arcades, and a little ol’ thing called the urban wine trail. (Fun spoiler: We had planned to hit- oh, 20 of the wineries. Our grand total for the weekend? TWO.)
Our first stop was Sanford, a lovely, kinda high-end family winery with a summer whites tasting flight for $20. (Why high-end? Because circa 2002 Kat, Annie, and Keely were very happy with their $3.50 amaretto stone sour pricing, thankyouverymuch.) That said, these wines were terrific. My favorite was the 2012 Vista Al Rincon Chardonnay- which smelled like pineapple, you guys. A bottle would’ve set me back a cool $55, so I happily entered their drawing for a case. I will absolutely share when I will. For I will win.
Fortified by 5 glasses of 2oz pours, I circled back to a gallery where I had spent a good amount of time loving on a print from local painter Karin Shelton. So I bought it. (You can see it here– it’s about halfway down the page and entitled “Garden.” Isn’t it so happy?!) Took it out of it’s protective backing to smile at it once an hour. And continuously sent pix of my new conquest to P.J. to ensure he was every bit as stoked as I. (“Yep. Still think it’s great! Go away.”)
Post-wine, pre-art. Why do you ask?
We stopped for lunch at C’est Cheese and promptly ordered three truffle grilled cheese sandwiches. #NoRegrets
Truffle. Grilled. Cheese.
After all of that high-energy consuming of cheese and wine and art, we stopped back at the homestead. I took advantage of the lull, grabbed a towel and another book, and headed to the beach to read in the afternoon sun. (I did not even recognize myself at this point in the trip, but it was a pretty great non-recognition, you know?) Said hi to the Pacific (and surrounding hills) and read a couple of chapters on a sandy stretch near the pier, toes in the salty water. It was exactly as terrific as it sounds.
Yep.
Swung back home to check in on the ladies, scooped them up, and headed back in the general direction of the beach and the Funk Zone– a newish area of hipster-y galleries, wine bars in renovated buildings, and businesses I was probably a solid decade too old for. We stopped at Oreana, a tasting room which featured a varied wine flight for $12 (YASSSSS) and an absolutely exceptional 2013 Chardonnay. (Cooked pear! Who’da thunk?)
I love these people.
Their Freestyle Red Blend (with hints of coffee, black currant, and light baking spices) was also an utterly drinkable, utterly lovely sipper. (And at $27 a bottle, it’s waaaaay more affordable and something I’d totally buy if they expanded distribution to Illinois HINT HINT.) Plus, they had absolutely adorable vintage-y tee shirts featuring VW buses, so obviously I had to get one for P.J.
Dinner reservations were for 8:15(!!!), so we had plenty of time to return home, primp, half-nap, and watch the majority of Ghostbusters II. (Girls weeeeeeeeeekend!)
The only standing-up picture taken of the three of us the whole weekend.
So, you guys, if you’re ever dining in Santa Barbara and want to feel like you’ve made it onto the set of a super-cool movie (and maybe by describing it as “super-cool” you’re taking yourself out of the running for any such invite), I highly recommend The Lark. Executive Chef Jason Paluska pretty much rocked my world with the Fairhills Farm stone fruit and burrata shareable plate (with pickled bing cherries, roasted cashew praline, red mustard greens, and persian lime gastrique) as well as the house made gnocchi and dungeness crab (with spanish chorizo, navel orange, castelventrano olives, lobster roe, and cilantro), but my brain pretty much exploded after trying/embarrassing myself with Pastry Chef Jeff Haines’ goat cheese cheesecake profiteroles. Good Lord. I can’t wait to go back someday with P.J.- although he’ll totally have to order his own dessert.
I almost made this my phone’s new wallpaper.
We were in bed again by 10pm. Reading. Happily. (Oh my God, so happily.)
The next morning we brunched at nearby Paradise Café (zucchini frittata!) and enjoyed roughly five cups of coffee before hitting the open road again. Sigh. Almost exactly 12 hours of travel back home (including snuggle time with my adorbs godson Ethan and a side trip to drop Kat off in a town called Oxnard- which you still cannot tell me is not an entirely made-up name) gave me plenty of time to enjoy solo bathroom trips, headphone music, and yet another finished novel. (…I’ll miss you most of all.)
I certainly didn’t have enough time to say and do everything with my pals.
Which is probably why we’ll do it again as soon as humanly possible.
I’ll spring for the goat cheese.
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