I hope everyone has had a good start to the year despite the weather. We were lucky in Tad and never lost our snow. Alan was skiing and we were snowshoeing and toboganning with the kids when they were with us for Christmas.

The good news – at least for us – is that we are now in California!!

The day we left Tadoussac was -22 with a windchill of -28 and looked like this:

Then we came to Martha’s place and wow what a different planet. I love the snow and we are looking forward to going back but this little respite is much appreciated. I have put some photos below of some of our highlights to date. The first is that Martha had to leave for a business trip and her boss told her to bring us to share her room in this very fancy hotel in Santa Barbara. Now I really feel retired as we  sent Martha off to work and we just went to play all day.

We arrived just as the sun was going down so ran to the beach immediately for a nice sunset walk.

 

The Four Seasons Biltmore was absolutely stunning – way out of our league so very nice to play the poor cousins along for the ride. The rooms were amazing. Martha and I were drooling over the bathroom – Alan less so as you can imagine.

Most spectacular were the gardens. The hotel was originally built in the 1800’s and so is on a large piece of land. The gardens had been kept almost as a botanical gardens in itself. Alan and I spoke to one of the gardeners who said he had been tending the gardens there for 36 years so had had a great deal to do with the planting and types of growth. They had a walking path all around the property so you could admire the gardens and identify the trees etc.

 

As difficult as it was we did actually leave the hotel itself. Alan and I are always searching for gardens, aquariums, harbors  and beaches and then any other bonus historical sites.

First of course was the harbour.

Alan found his next boat

And I found mine

The boats and the harbor was pretty amazing.

We also visited Santa Barbara mission which is a very interesting piece of early California history. Started by the Franciscans in the early early days of California it has been rebuilt and restored following fires and earthquakes and remains an active parish steeped in the history and the heart of the community. They have received grants and awards for the archaeology work and the restoration work that they have done.  Very beautiful place to spend a morning.

The other place which we went that blew us away was the botanical gardens up in the Mission Canyon Valley.  They have focused only on the plants and trees of California and now are part of a large group of gardens and researchers trying to find ways of dealing with the catastrophic drought conditions of California.  I think we need to take more seriously our wealth – forget the damn oil sands – it is water that is going to make us a hot commodity worth invading!!

Finally just so no one thinks we have completely forgotten our roots Martha took Alan to a Anaheim Ducks vs Toronto Leafs game last night – sad spectacle from the Canadian team. The only redeeming note was that Cory Perry who scored a hat trick for the Ducks was drafted from the Peterborough Petes where I grew up. I know grasping at straws but really Leafs – not even one goal.

Jayson plays a game on the weekend and there is actually hockey equipment hanging in the backyard to dry!! How weird is that.

So that is where we are and what we are up to. Don,t see this as gloating over the weather see it more as sharing our respite – sure that is going to work.