Santa Barbara, CA

This is a really beautiful area on the southern coast of California. It used to be just a regular town, but then it was "discovered," and now movie stars and singers, as well as Arabian shieks, have mansions here.

Santa Barbara boasts one of the historic California missions that the Catholics built up and down the coast:



Naturally, this heavy early Spanish presence means a lot of Spanish architecture:



Being on the coast is always nice:



Especially if you go to UCSB, which sits RIGHT on the ocean:



You can see some interesting things up in the hills, too. Like this Chumash cave painting site. Apparently there are others, but their location is not publicly known, so as to preserve them from vandals.



There's also Knapp's Castle, whose ruin sits on the hills straddling Santa Barbara and Santa Inez. The temperature/climate difference on either side is huge. Santa Barbara has the lovely, moderating ocean climate, while Santa Inez is just hot and deserty.



Typical plants of the hills: