Scrapbooking, wine, and Davey Crockett in Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara has been a highlight of the trip so far. Collin, knock on wood, seems to be quite well adjusted to the travel routine. Last night was a bit of a mini-milestone because he actually slept the whole night (9-5:30) in his own crib. I guess we're finally wearing him out with all of this activity. Not to mention, he seems to be very lovey dovey with me lately. Poor CJ feels a bit left out I think!

Today was another busy, but laid back (sort of) type of day. I found a scrapbooking store called Santa Barbara Scrapbooks (www.SBscrapbooks.com). Holy Crapper! We have nothing like in NJ that I know of and it is a scrapper heaven. Not to mention it was hilarious to watch Collin's reaction when the store pug kept coming over to sniff his feet dangling out of the stroller! I can only hope that some day Collin will appreciate the mania that is going into creating this scrapbook!

Afterwords we took a drive up to wine country via some desert country. The area's wine industry has really been booking for the last several years and I was eager to check it out. The drive up into the mountains entails going through some pretty desert-like areas and about half way there CJ realized we were just about out of gas. Again, holy crapper! It was reading about 100 degrees and if we ran out of gas we could have had a bit of a situation on our hands. Luckily there was a campground we passed that actually sold gas...60 bucks to fill the tank. We arrived in a little town called Los Olivios, which reminded me of the Old West, except it had about a dozen or so wine tasting places. I chickened out of trying any though because I felt like such a novice! Off we drove to Fess Parker's (aka Davey Crokett) vinyard where I became a bit braver and actually tasted a couple. We left with 2 bottles of Riesling and a coon skin cap for my brother Gary. Tomorrow, we're leaving at the crack of dawn for Monterey. This will be our big driving day of the trip.