Road Trip to Santa Barbara!

To celebrate the last few days of my summer (umm, I go back to school on Wednesday to prepare for sorority recruitment and am so not ready for endless days of tanning and swimming to come to an end), my mom and I headed up the 101 to Santa Barbara for some of our favorites - shopping, eating great food, and visiting absolutely charming areas along the central coast.

We stayed at the Bacara Hotel just past UCSB, an Italian-style series of villas that lived up to my expectations in every way.

 Downtown Santa Barbara was as quaint and lovely as I had imagined from watching movies like It's Complicated, with strict building regulations keeping the classic Spanish-style buildings as the norm and ugly modern towers out.

And as a history buff, I always love a good Mission Trip! If you don't know about the California Missions or haven't visited any of them, you are totally missing out. They are probably my favorite historical places to visit in the Golden State.

On Friday we drove inland to Los Olivos, which is tiny but extremely quaint and has an almost midwestern sensibility to it (I told my mom that this little gas station - turned - cafe reminded me of the movie Cars) except there are wine tasting stands everywhere now that the Central Coast Valley has turned into another Napa.

Also we went to this place called Sides Hardware & Shoes; a Brothers Restaurant and I had the most amazing, artery-clogging burger of my LIFE and it was totally heaven - also, the restaurant is a converted hardware store so it's just really cute.

Basically, I had a lovely time. It was the perfect way to relax and enjoy summer before heading out to school again.