Santa Barbara

After 3 weeks in Hawaii and 1 week each in San Antonio, Tempe, and San Diego we began playing split weeks again. It really was a shame because I would have loved having a full week in Santa Barbara. Isn't that always the way?!

The view from our hotel's parking lot. From the minute I saw the foothills, I knew I had to experience them for myself.

Since we had two days in Santa Barbara with only evening shows, I had to plan my time wisely. For the first day, I decided to walk from our hotel to downtown Santa Barbara. On the way during the several mile walk, I took in as many of the sights as possible including the Santa Barbara Mission.

Downtown Santa Barbara has some great old architecture as well as some great shopping. Well I did not have the money for the shopping, but I enjoyed the walk.

There were ads for The Color Purple coming to Santa Barbara. Interestingly the show was coming to a different theatre than Beauty and the Beast was playing. Who knew a town like Santa Barbara would have two venues capable of housing large national tours?

The walk through Santa Barbara led to the water and the pier.

The view from the pier was pretty spectacular!

I kept hearing this odd barking noise from the pier, and knew it could only mean one thing: sea lions! They were quite a distance off, and even zooming in this was as close as I could get with my camera.

Lunch Stop In Santa Monica

I have encountered just about all manner of lunch stops since I began touring: pathetic side of the road stops in Iowa and Texas, exciting please don't make me leave stops in Hershey World and Downtown Disney, and now Santa Monica the most posh lunch stop.

When I heard that we were stopping in Santa Monica to have lunch on the Promenade, I tried to do a little research about Santa Monica. All I really knew about Santa Monica was rich people and beaches. It turns out that there is not much else to know about Santa Monica except for the famous pier.

Just imagine how much those beach houses are worth!

I opted to eat a real lunch instead of making the hike out to the pier. I had time to get a little closer, but my great touring fear is being left by the bus so I did not bother.

Boy How Time Flies In San Diego

Well one week in San Diego is not enough. As I finish up my posts about San Diego, I kept looking for pictures of things that I did not have time to do or photograph. I will just have to add San Diego to the list of places that I hope to return to again.

A group of us rented an apartment for the week. Why there were glow sticks, I really don't remember now?!

The Gaslamp Quarter is the big restaurant and bar area of Downtown San Diego. We made it there a couple of times, but I only seem to have gotten pictures of the signage.

Aside from the Cultural Center and the Old Globe Theatre, San Diego is home to several other theatres. Here are the ones that I discovered walking around:

I am not sure of the exact details behind The San Diego Symphony, but I do know that they went bankrupt and were defunct for a time. I know this because Damian Bursill-Hall, my first flute teacher at IU, played for the San Diego Symphony until they went bankrupt. I did not realize that they were performing again until I walked past Copley Hall. I was happy to see that! Oh and Damian is playing in The Pittsburgh Symphony now.

San Diego Civic Theatre

San Diego is a great city with some great architecture. Sadly the San Diego Civic Theatre is not great architecture. It seems a shame that the big Broadway tours should have to play a modern plain red box like the Civic Theatre given the fact that there are existing old theatres. Oh well at least there is plenty of backstage room?!

The walls are actually red. The theatre is so uninspiring that I did not bother to work at getting better pictures.

Some theatres have wall art backstage and some theatres have posters. San Diego has posters.

You Only Live Once

When Brett initially invited me on the boating trip, my initial inclination was to go, but not take part in the out of boat activities. So in making my plans, I did not bring my bathing suit. Well of course when we actually got there, the tubing looked like such fun I had to give it a try. Since I did not come prepared, I had to borrow Tommy's extra suit. Now Tommy is half my age and size so it is only thanks to my obsessive weight loss before Hawaii that I even came close to fitting in his suit!

I also gave water skiing a shot. It is very difficult (although I still question Brett's approach as the driver), and this is the closest that I came to actually getting upright. Oh well, the others were more skilled at the water sports than I was.