Dreams, Moments, Travels
We closed out 2004 and welcomed in 2005 with some friends over dinner. From the left clockwise are Harish, Mandanna, Gautam, Shashi, Ashok, Caroline, Srujana, Rinku, and Savita. Although Jay, Raenu, and Krupesh couldn’t be with us, they were well thought of.
I thought nothing would ever change in this house Tata and Woody have lived in since they left Buffalo, New York, back in the late 1960s, but they redid the floor and had the walls painted.
Nothing else changed, not the stove, not the dishwasher, the countertops, or these old chairs my family played pinochle in while smoking up a storm. I think they all smoked back then.
In the 1970s, it was pretty frequent that family would all come up to Santa Barbara for weekends with the Burns. Tata and Woody would buy up a bunch of Tri-tips before anyone else really knew what that was, marinate it, and then grill it out back across from the jacuzzi. Back then, a jacuzzi was a luxury and seriously uncommon.
We, kids, could take their bikes out or head down to the nearby school that had public tennis courts or sit in the living room and watch their fancy TV that had a remote control.
Time for us to say goodbye as we pulled away with a car full of toilet paper, juice, soda, paper towels, dish soap, pens, and other stuff Tata pilfered from her job, and probably some cash she threw at us to cover gas. This was our first time spending Christmas with them, but it won’t be our last.
It’s been foggy/cloudy all day, so we didn’t spend too much time here at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
We did spend a good amount of time in Covina, stopping for dinner at my old favorite, Clearman’s North Woods Inn; I’ll never tire of their amazing salads. It was late before we ever pulled into our parking spot at home, but it was a great weekend and well worth the effort.
First up was church services on this early Christmas morning as the Burns are Catholic and still practice on occasion. Not only did Uncle Woody wear Christmas colors for the day, but Sophie went to church with us, kind of. She waited for us in the car.
Nope, we’re not at Jack-in-the-Box or at Cajun Kitchen; we’ve driven over to Santa Barbara proper, and if we are over the water, we’re not eating at the last remaining Sambo’s Restaurant either.
The pelican seems to mean business by glaring at us as if we could just pull a fish out of our pocket or something.
Breakfast was a special affair as we’d never eaten out here. We’re at Moby Dick Restaurant on Stearns Wharf. Not sure how many photos I have of Tata and me as she’s so reluctant to have her picture taken. I’d wager this is the one and only photo of her and me on Christmas day ever.
This giant fig tree in Santa Barbara has been here forever, or at least as long as I can remember, and in my memories as a child, it’s always been just this big. See human for scale.
Sophie, the German Shepherd; Caroline, the German Wife; and Uncle Woody – the invader of Germany on the beach in Santa Barbara.
A beautiful and memorable Christmas day in sunny California, in love and with family.
We know the routine well: wake up and get out the door as it’s time for coffee and breakfast at Cajun Kitchen, just around the corner from here.
At the dog park on the bench is Uncle Woody; our Aunt Ann (Tata) is sitting behind him as Chester comes over to not only bask in the sun but in the affectionate petting from our uncle.
After those formalities are out of the way, we convince our aunt and uncle to head up to Solvang with us. As they’ve grown older, and now with my father having passed away, they don’t get out much. When my father was still alive, they’d drive out the 140 miles to his house to deliver a ton of stuff they felt he needed that they’d collected either at Costco or from various sales at the local grocery shops Tata frequents. At other times, my father would meet them about halfway between his home and theirs in Calabasas at an IHOP.
Our first stop was at the Old Mission Santa Ines, which we’d not visited before. We’ve been working on trying to see all of the California missions.
Inside Old Mission Santa Ines.
We passed through Solvang for some window shopping but already had plans for lunch, so this old Smorgasbord will have to wait for a future visit.
This was the payoff for Tata and Woody traveling with us; it turns out that it had been years since they last ate at Pea Soup Andersen’s in Buellton. They love this place in part because I think it reminds them of life some 35 years ago when the place looked the exact same as it does now.
Our drive back to Goleta.
The hills north of Cathedral Oaks Road on the way to Place Drive.
Christmas Eve with the Burns at 288 Placer Drive, an address forever seared into my memory.
Our last road trip of the year was to spend Christmas in Santa Barbara with my Aunt Ann, a.k.a. Tata, and Uncle Woody. Before getting there, we must drive through the desert many miles, and then only late at night will we finally arrive.
We went over to Little India in Artesia to get breakfast at Annapurna Cuisine because we love pongal (the stuff on the right), and idle and sambar are pretty good, too. In Phoenix, there is zero opportunity to have such a meal unless a friend makes it and invites us to their house.
From there, we went over to Chinatown with Raenu and Arturito, looking for bargains. Actually, I don’t think Arturito cared one bit about shopping, he was a hard read to know if he was even having fun. I guess he’s kind of like his dad, Arturo Silva, an old friend of mine (this is his son) who is the master of the emotionless face.
Hanging out on Olvera Street in the old Pueblo of Los Angeles.
Shopping for more bargains.
From there, we hopped over to Little Tokyo but took no photos of that excursion before we started our drive east in earnest.
Earnestly until we got to Diamond Bar so we could stop in on Ten Ren’s Tea Time and introduce these guys to boba tea, at the time in the early 21st century, it wasn’t a thing among America’s youth yet. And so, this was Caroline’s birthday weekend.