A change in venue....

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8:17 am - Thursday- Santa Barbara -  59º F, humidity 82 %, wind 4 mph out of the north northwest.....forecast high 69º F......heavy marine layer.

Wednesday began heavily overcast, and that is how it remained the entire day.....a couple of times it began to lightly 'mist'......not quite a drizzle, but a mist.  Knowing we would be on the train headed south to Santa Barbara mid afternoon I was determined to get another ride in before it was time to head to the train station so just before 10 am I set out on my Cannondale Bad Boy to ride to Avila Beach once again, this time with gusto.......when I ride with TLE we ride at a relaxed 9-10 mph.......when I ride by myself I'm usually pushing 4-5 mph faster.  While on Tuesday it took 'us' about 54 minutes one way to Avila Beach, I reached there in just over 40 minutes......I took a minute to snap a couple of pictures to memorialize my arrival, took off my vest, and gloves before remounting the Bad Boy for the return 9.2 mile ride........

 Heavily overcast in Avila, also

......the return ride was uneventful......just like I like it, and I arrived back at the coach about 10:20 am having covered the 18.7 miles in about 1 hour and 16 minutes.....

......average speed 14.8 mph, 1,168 calories expunged from my physical mass.  When I returned TLE was gone....she had said she was going to do a little shopping while I was riding, and she was true to her word.....she arrived back about 15 minutes after I.

I spent some time putting away some of our stuff in anticipation of our departure from SLO on Friday morning.....we would not be back in SLO from our Santa Barbara trip until late afternoon.  

Around 2:40 we made the drive over to the local AMTRAK station, which is less than 3 miles from the Elks Lodge arriving about 30 minutes before our scheduled departure.  

We arrived at the train station right on time,  but as it turned out the southbound train was about 30 minutes late.....

.....but it did arrive by 3:50 pm, and within minutes we were in our seats.....I think in our car there were no more than 20 people so it felt as if we had the whole train to ourselves.  The 2.25 hour trip was uneventful, and by 6:15 pm we were exiting the train and being wisked away by our niece Stephanie over to a local Mexican eatery called Carlito's for dinner where we met up with my sister Hilary, and her husband Bob who had flown down from Spokane......

.....of course there was alfresco dinning, and wonderful food....I had their Chile Relleno, which is probably the best I have ever had!

Ultimately it became time to head up to the home of Hilary's in-laws in the hills of Montecito to spend the night.....this house is about 10,000 square feet with a 300 degree view of the Santa Barbara coastline......

......we were up until 11 talking and catching up......thanks for stopping by!

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