We spent two days in Santa Barbara County. Leisa loves "Sideways," and the beautiful countryside, so she wanted to wander out there and check it out. Although it's fabulous, I think the wineries are cashing in on the "Sideways Bounce." $10 for a tasting. $30 for a bottle of wine; it's like everything has been marked up because of the movie.

The first day we went up Foxen Canyon Rd., and visited several wineries up there. The main drawback to this excursion is the utter paucity of places to eat along the way. There are no stores, delis, kwik-e-marts, nothing along the way. If you don't pack a picnic lunch, you have the opportunity to get way buzzed. Which we did.

We tasted until about 4, then came back to the Motel 6 to take a nap. We then went to dinner at AJ Spurs, which was featured in "Sideways." Had some very good steaks, and some good wine, then wandered back to the motel and to bed.

Day two we wandered into Solvang, which has a neat street lined with tasting rooms. We'd buy several bottles from one place, take them to the car, and wander back to the next tasting room. And they also had a very nice restaurant there, the Los Olivos Cafe, where I had a very nice five cheese pizza and Leisa had a grilled vegetable antipasto.

We took the kids to the Hitching Post that evening, which was also featured in the film, and had another delicious steak dinner. We left the next morning, and stopped in the town of Santa Barbara proper to taste just a bit more before heading back to Phoenix.

Here's a few photos.

AJ Spurs, little blurry with no tripod.

Here I am at Frass Canyon winery.

And here's the squalor in which we lived for most of the trip. Every motel room looked like this 15 minutes after we arrived.

Even Sparky! was messy. There's the Squeaky Mailman near Leisa's feet.

Motel 6 doesn't believe in fitted sheets. So every morning we'd wake up, wrapped in a mess of top and bottom sheets which had all pulled loose.

We arrived back in Phoenix at 11 in the evening, after a horrendous slog through LA traffic. 2430 miles in ten days. Although I hadn't planned on it, I took the day after we got back from vacation off, just so I could relax.

Remind me, and I'll put pictures of the wine purchase up here.

To see the Wake-up Bunny's version of the trip, click here. 

Then click here.

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