Hi Kids! This going to be a combination of a couple of things...a kind of catch up blog if you will. Saturday the 31st, we left, rather begrudgingly, the lovely village of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Sure do wish we could have spent more time there, lovely place. But, we had to make our way to Thousand Oaks, located just outside of LA and we had a bit of a drive ahead of us. But the question was quickly brought up...Should we take the highway to the T.O. and get there ...

Hi Kids! What I'm realizing very quickly is that distances between places are an awfully lot bigger than at home, at least they seem that way. California when compared to teeny, tiny Massachusetts seems so large it should be two states (as someone said whose name escapes me) instead of one. So we left the sunny southern California bliss that was Santa Barbara and traveled to the more northern California flavored location of Carmel-by-the-Sea. We traded our pal...

Hi Kids It has normally been my custom to write about a stop on the tour after it's happened, but I felt I had to tell you about this stop as soon as I could. In a word....wow. Santa Barbara...I'd have to say, so far this is my favorite stop (Sorry Toledo) I really could get used to a place like this. Santa Barbara, for those who have never been, is a beautiful, vibrant, small city right on the ocean, north of LA. It's main blvd (State Street) is lined with tr...