While yesterday was all about family, today, after breakfast, the day turned to what Caroline and I were going to do for ourselves after committing to the 1,100-mile round trip to be out here. On our way back east toward Arizona, our first stop was at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

When in Santa Barbara, it is easy to forget that at one time the landscape was a diverse one instead of the Spanish-influenced architecture that now dominates the skyline. Old tall trees are not something you see every day here.

This fine specimen of beauty makes everything look better. She certainly and forever has my heart.

This is one of those moments where I wish I had a proper camera and lens that would allow me to take macros that crawl right into the subject matter.

Mission Santa Barbara is probably one of the most outstanding examples of the mission system there is, though there are plenty of others we have yet to visit.

Being in a place where spring blurs into summer in a perpetual world of perfect weather, there are always scenes of natural beauty unfolding. It’s no wonder people are flocking to the area to snag a home near the sea.

I was only going to post one photo of the mission, but between Caroline and I, we couldn’t choose which was the better one so I’m posting them both.

Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles was our next stop as we just love stopping in at Kinokuniya for some book shopping, walking over to the deli for some imagawayaki, and browsing the many gift shops. Before starting our drive home in earnest, we had to make a pit stop at Ten Ren’s Tea Time in Rowland Heights for some boba tea. Now, the trip has been all around perfect.

Still using a loaner car from VW as the repairs are taking forever. Well, at least the miles that would have cost us another $385 on lease overage were free.