Santa Barbara is so fundamentally fabulous that the thought of leaving, ever, may fill you with despair. Yet for the good of the honeymoon it is time to press on.
There are two routes north out of Santa Barbara: San Marcos Pass (Hwy 154) and your old friend US 101. The Pass offers both panoramic views of Santa Barbara and the opportunity for head-on collusions with other drivers gawking at the scenery. About 10-11 miles up The Pass you'll see a sign for Painted Cave Road. Turn right onto the road and go a few miles up into the hills; there you will find an honest-to-goodness cave loaded with petroglyphs created by the Chumash Indians in between being exploited by the Spanish and plotting their bloody revenge.
There is also a community of Painted Cave best known for inhabitants who like to remain anonymous and off the grid. Jane Fonda used to live there, so did Joe Cocker and if you say "who are they?" I am going to have to slap you, as soon as I can get up out of my chair. Be a dear and hand me my zimmer frame.
Continue up Hwy 154; about a mile past the summit take the Stagecoach Road exit to the left. At the bottom of the valley, undisturbed by sunlight, sits The Cold Springs Tavern. For nearly 130 years (that's a lot to an American) the Cold Springs Tavern has been serving the food and beverage needs of successive generations of ranchers, cowboys and bikers. Back when I was much cooler than I am now, my buddies in the Santa Barbara Harley Owners Group (HOG) and I would ride up to the tavern on Saturdays so that we could admire each others leather jackets and intimidate the tourists. The food is great, the atmosphere rustic and they have live rock/country music on the weekends. If you do happen to stop in on a weekend be warned- it is always packed. If you just want to go for the experience try a weekday lunch but even then you should call for a reservation.
Heading out from The Cold Springs Tavern you can go back up the way you came or continue along the valley floor- either way will join you back up with The Pass. As you continue your drive you will pass Cachuma Lake on the right. Cachuma was formed when they dammed the Santa Ynez River in the 50s and it is the main water supply for Santa Barbara and the surrounding area. My dad used to be in charge of Cachuma operations and management for the water department and I spent many a muddy afternoon on the banks of the lake failing to catch fish.
Hwy. 154 eventually deposits you back onto US 101. You could just as easily have taken 101 North out of Santa Barbara instead of San Marcos Pass- it's about the same distance. 101 follows the coast and gives a nearly unobstructed ocean view. There are only two things of any historical interest along that rout: the foundation of an old water tower, all that remains of a WWII German POW camp, and the old Ellwood oil fields, the first place in the continental US that was hit by enemy fire since you damn Brits tried to repatriate us back in 1812.
Settle in for a long stretch. Your next port-o-call will be San Luis Obispo, proclaimed the "Happiest Place in America" by some hack flogging his book on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Growing up in Santa Barbara I looked upon my northern neighbours with the same idle disrespect that Londoners feel toward, well, everybody. The truth is that San Luis is pretty cool by small-town standards now that they finally got a handle on that inbreeding problem.
Apart from a populace who all look suspiciously similar, San Luis Obispo is renown for one thing, The Madonna Inn. You...must...stop there. In all the eloquent vagaries of the English language there is no word, no phrase, no utterance, which can adequately describe the over-the-top trailer-park extravagance that is The Madonna Inn. It is what cubic zirconia is to the Hope Diamond, as utterly tasteless as wearing a tube-top to a wedding. They have 109 themed rooms, each with its own special charm. Would you like a special Valentine's Day get away? The Hearts & Flowers room was made just for you. Nothing says "class" quite like red velvet sofas. The tour de force of sensory overload is undoubtedly their Gold Rush Steak House a jaw-dropping explosion of pink and gold extracted directly from The Easter Bunny’s nightmares. If you want to experience true fear, look at the photos of the Gold Rush Steak House dining room. You’ll see a picture on a normal day and one done up for Valentine's dinner AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE! Simply viewing these photos will send a normally healthy person into a diabetic coma.
No trip to the Madonna Inn is complete without a visit to the urinal located in the gent's toilet in the basement of the restaurant. I won't spoil the surprise.
For all its stupefying eccentricities The Madonna Inn is redeemed by a staff that are totally in on the joke. They take pride in the mockery and will laugh and point right along with you. Whereas if the place was run by earnest and sincere people who honestly thought they were providing the most lavish accommodations anyone could hope for rather than a freakish Disney-esque travesty for the eyeballs, then it would all be a bit sad. They know that The Madonna Inn is so un-cool that it has become tragically hip. The place laughs at itself before you get a chance to- so go ahead, slide into one of those hot-pink booths, order a banana daiquiri and be part of the joke for a while. I guarantee that you'll walk out of there with a totally different attitude than when you went it.
I've flown past another self-imposed midnight deadline and we haven't even made it to Big Sur like I promised we would last night. I hope I can get this done before you actually land in California