It has been a long, housebound summer and we were ready for a road trip. So we decided to take 10 days and head to California. Ken wanted to visit old friends, show me San Francisco, and head up to the redwoods of Northern California. I had my doctor’s appointment Tuesday afternoon for a meet & greet and a new prescription for my Simvastatin. Between delays in getting stuff for the new bathroom and our contractor’s health problems, the bathroom redo hadn’t been started yet. But there would be plenty of time after we got back to get it done before Thanksgiving. And we were eager to go, so we did.
Both Ken and I have been rising early so we were able to have a reasonably leisurely breakfast and still hit the road by 7:40 AM. On to Santa Barbara. 496 miles and 7:46 hours later we arrived at our hotel in Goleta, just NW of Santa Barbara. Ken called Nina to get the particulars on where and when to pick her up, scoped out a couple of restaurants on Google, and took a nap. I relaxed and read.
Nina was 4 years old when Ken accompanied her, her mother, and her baby brother on the flight from India to the US. Ken and Nina entertained each other on the long flight. (Her father worked for Ken and Ken had some business interests in India then and had volunteered to accompany them back.) The Balesan’s became part of Ken’s extended family and remain so even after they moved to California. He was very much looking forward to seeing them.
After a little “you can’t get there due to road closures” adventure, we picked up Nina at UC Santa Barbara and headed into town. Our first choice, Toma’s, had no room for walk-ins so we headed to Aldo’s where we had a pretty nice Italian meal. (The Cilantro-Pesto sauce on my Ravioli Chicken was too tart so I can’t give it a great label. But it had lots of flavor.) Nina is a lovely girl and very easy for this shy person to talk to on the first meeting. Ken and her still hit it off big time.
[Written on 10/27/2013]
No comments:
Post a Comment