'All systems are go, and confidence is high....'

 7:45 am - Real Saturday - March 6th - Santa Barbara, CA - 58° F, 60% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south by southwest.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2012 we were in just our 5th week of full time travel, and had, at last, arrived at the Gulf Coast on South Padre Island, TX......↴

Our oldest daughter, Meredith, treated us to coffee and pastries Friday morning before our scheduled departure from Rancho Jurupa.  We sat in the coach talking, and talking as we always do, but eventually we had to begin to get ready to haul anchor and continue our trek northward back to Seal Rock, OR so we said our 'until next times', and hugged two or three times.  Fortunately, we will see her again on Memorial Day weekend when we attend the wedding of my sister Hilary's daughter Caroline to Jake in Spokane, WA.  Several of my kids, and their families will also be in attendance.

We were rolling our six 22.5" wheels by 10 am on the dot, and within minutes were merging onto SR-60 westbound, experiencing the infamous SoCal traffic.  By 1 pm we had escaped the SoCal traffic vortex as we came in view of the Pacific Ocean while merging onto SR-101 just south of Ventura.......

.....our modest destination this day was the Elks Lodge in Santa Barbara.  We have never stayed there before, and wanted to check it out for a few days before continuing north.  We haven't seen the ocean since we left Seal Rock on February 10th, which now seems like a long time ago.  

We reached the Santa Barbara Elks Lodge (Lodge #613) around 1:30 pm, and were quickly ensconced in site #14 within minutes.......

....there are 16 sites in all here, and if it was completely full would be a little tight, but at present the park is at 50% occupancy.  We don't have anyone on our passenger side, so it is quite comfortable.  Each site offers water and electricity (30 & 50 amp), and there is an onsite dump station.  The lodge is located in an upscale neighborhood in a suburb on the north side of Santa Barbara called Goleta.  We are just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean, so I think we'll get out the eBikes and take a ride Saturday for sure.  There is also a Trader Joe's just a block away, so how much better does it get, right?

The Newell just floated down the highway without issue, and I just hung onto the steering wheel for the ride.  As I always tell TLE when it is running this smoothly....'All systems are go, and confidence is high'....lol....a little NASA reference for those who might remember hearing those words often during each successive space mission back in the 60's.

After 4 days of interaction with our kids and their kids it is decompression time, and 3 days here in Santa Barbara should do the trick nicely.  

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