On the Road with T and S

We left Solvang on Tuesday morning after breakfast for the short drive to Santa Barbara. Once again it was a scorcher of a day, with temperatures near the one hundred mark! We drove down to the coast and stopped at the beach in Goleta. We reached Santa Barbara in time for lunch. Santa B is often described as the Californian Riviera.  Many of the buildings are whitewashed with Spanish red-tiled roofs and its main street, State Street, leads down to a beautiful beach.  Santa Barbara Courthouse  View from Courthouse tower The harbour and wharf areas have some great fish restaurants and we enjoyed  some lovely meals there.   We rented bicycles and biked along the coast early on Thursday morning before the temperature got too high.  While walking in the harbour later in the day, we were very lucky to see a school of dolphins swimming close by.   We also saw many of the brown pelicans for which Santa Barbara is  famou...

On Thursday morning we picked up our new car rental at San Francisco Airport. This time we got a Kia Sportage.  We headed south through Santa Cruz and the Monterey peninsula and arrived in Carmel-by-the-Sea in the afternoon. It was lovely to be back there as we really enjoyed it two years ago. It is a small beach city known for its laid-back vibe with lots of galleries, shops and fairy-tale houses on its tree-lined streets.  Monday night saw a storm hit Carmel so the sea was quite wild the following morning as we walked on its famous white-sand, crescent beach.  We visited Point Lobos State Nature Reserve, about 5 miles south of Carmel. This has long been considered the “crown jewel” of the California State Park system and is well worth a visit due to its breathtaking beauty and fascinating wildlife. Because the sea was very rough we were unable to see the many sea lions, sea otters, dolphins etc.  We also drove...

On Friday morning, we left Santa Fe and headed north to Cimarron. Cimarron is a village in Colfax county, NM which sits on the eastern slopes of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.  We stayed in what is reputed to be one of the most haunted hotels in the USA at the St James Hotel, built in 1872. It has one room that is supposedly so spooky that it is never rented out.  Many legends of the Old West  stayed here including Buffalo Bill Cody, Jesse James, Annie Oakley and Wyatt Earp. The hotel front desk even has a list of those who were shot in the hotel. We evensaw some bullet holes in the ceiling of the bar.  The front desk The lobby The following morning saw us on our way to Colorado, a journey of over 200 miles.  We drove through vast plains as we headed to Colorado Springs with the Rockies in the background.  On Sunday, we drove to Manitou Springs, a very attractive small town to take the cog railway to Pike's Peak. For ove...

We left Chama on a cool, dry morning and headed east towards Taos. We travelled through high desert. We stopped for coffee in Tres Piedras in the only cafe within a 30 mile radius. There wasn’t even a grocery store or gas station in the area.  The only cafe for miles around! We continued along our journey and noticed a number of strange looking buildings shortly before we reached Taos. They were Earthships! We stopped to to get a closer view and discovered that we were at the world headquarters of Taos’ pioneering community for sustainable living - Earthships Biotecture. This was the brainchild of architect Michael Reynolds. There are 70 Earthships and they were all built using recyclable materials and are buried on three sides. These futuristic homes look part Gaudi-esque and part space-age fantasy.  An Earthship We then stopped briefly at the vertigo-inducing Rio Grande Gorge Bridge which is one of the highest bridges in the USA.  View fr...