Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

It is not often that a local gets to take advantage of his own locale. Santa Barbara is certainly a tourist destination and one that attracts the luxury jet-setter, young familes, and the surfer beach bum alike. One quiet winter afternoon, determined to understand the tourist traps along the coastline myself, I was caught off guard by how subtly the atmosphere and mood was changing around me: hints of fog were slowly creeping toward the cliffs, the tide was inching further and further up the shell-studded sands, and beach-goers were falling silent as the sun began its slow descent amid the illuminated crests of saltwater. As I shifted my attention from the sunlit hills to the sunset itself, I had to chuckle, realizing the simple reasons why anyone comes to visit the so-called "American Riviera."