Santa Barbara County Wine Tasting

Last weekend I went hiking and this weekend I decided to do something fun again.  I talked Lindy into wine tasting with me in Santa Barbara.  She was excited because she had never been before and I hadn't been in a few years, so we headed to S.B. Saturday morning.

First stop: Foley winery

The wine we were sampling here was called: Two Sisters haha

At Melville which was really close to Foley

Babcock Winery which shares a driveway with Melville

We did nine tastings here for the set tasting menu and then they told us that we could sneak into the warehouse and go to the "special club members only tasting" which was another six tastings.  By that point we had had a lot of wine and definitely got our money's worth out of Babcock.

We ended up leaving the Lompoc/Buellton/Solvang area and coming back to downtown Santa Barbara. Brooks met up with us and we went to two more wineries downtown and had some dinner.

Municipal Winery

Needless to say, we passed out early (by about 9pm) at Brooks' as he kindly lent us his bed.  

But we were up and at 'em the next morning to visit aunt Kathi and uncle George for some yummy breakfast.

After breakfast we realized we had two free tastings to Firestone winery because we had gone to Foley and apparently they are a sister winery.

So, we had some more wine.

It was a gorgeous location and was free, which is even better.

Then we headed into Los Olivos, which I had never been to before, and tried two more wineries.

We headed back to downtown after that, hit up one more free place and then headed back to Santa Barbara.

Sherri and Jim Joe were doing their usual Sunday Funday dinner, so we crashed it and had some good food with them.

Jim Joe is turning Sherri into a Browns fan??

Crossing More Things Off . . .

On Friday I went to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and the La Brea Tar Pits.  I also hit up the restaurant the Stinking Rose in Beverly Hills.

Outside of La Brea Tar pits - honestly, it was a little disappointing and cost like $11 to get in and didn't seem like it had a lot to see.  I kinda feel like we missed something because it just didn't feel like there was a lot to look at.

But, at least I've now gone there :)

LACMA on the other hand was really cool and the grounds were gorgeous.  They are right by the La Brea tar pits so it was easy to hit up both.

Art

All these lamps looked really cool at night when they were lit up

More fun art

Watch out

Then we walked around the Grove for a little bit and ended up eating dinner at Stinking Rose - it's a garlic restaurant and we shared crab legs, a side of vegetables and some yummy bread that they serve

Garlic!

Garlic head :)

I would definitely go back to LACMA again - it was really cool and there was a lot to see.  The other places, eh, I could wait awhile to frequent them again.