Santa Barbara - Pismo Beach

With the fog clearing, So-Cal reveals a warmth that had me walking around in shorts all day, nearly a week into "winter". We left LA and headed to Camarillo where there is an enormous outlet mall. You guessed it, this was where Jannie bought more shoes. And jeans. We'll need a new suitcase to carry everything back at this rate.

Next we arrived in Santa Barbara, a really outstanding beach community that features lovely beaches (almost as nice as Australian ones), fantastic food and a rampaging nightlife. We were just in time for the Holiday Parade, a real small-town-Americana experience. They trundled out numerous marching bands from the local high schools, gymnastic clubs that did cartwheels down the street, the town's "No 1" fire engine and Santa made an appearance at the end, all to the crowds applause and a sea of smiles and "Happy Holidays!". The contingent from the town's special olympics group gave especially heartwarming exhortations and brought tears to Jannie's eye.

I was reminded several times of the film Cutter's Way while in Santa Barbara. There are a number of parade scenes in that too (and it was shot in Santa Barbara) - one in particular where the protagonist is asked by somebody on a horse how they look - "you look like a fat man on a horse, Georgie" is the reply. There were a lot of fat men driving over-sized trucks in the holiday parade Friday night.

It's a wealthy community with a large Latino working class belt on its fringes, and as Tom Wiener notes "Cutter's Way is acutely sensitive to the bitterness that gnaws at people drawn to the physical charms of California, only to be disappointed by their inability to share in the false promise of happiness those charms hold out". We'll try to get back to Santa Barbara, it is in my mind the quintessential so-cal experience.

The next stop was Pismo Beach where we saw an outstanding sunset and were bathed in the smoke of numerous barbecues on the beach. (The American BBQ method is more like smoking meat rather than the fast cooking as we impatient Aussies demand).

The scenery while driving has been amazing, and we are having a great time. This is the first time in a long while that we have been out in the country and it feels fine.