Santa Barbara - day 1

So it's a little intimidating flying at 600mph to Santa Barbara watching plains, mountains, lakes, towns, etc. unspool over a matter of hours and realizing that I'm going to be covering much more distance than this at like, 15mph :) - it's a big country!

Santa Barbara warm up ride of 15 miles cruising around the area - beautiful coast with Santa Cruz island in the distance. Stearns Wharf was completed in 1873 and opened up the area much more to development - and of course every wharf has to have ice cream - chocolate malt crunch was damn good. The bikes we're on are a far cry from my 2007 Trek racing bike - much more comfortable ride and electronic shifting - plus turn-by-turn directions on the Garmin... we'll need all the advantages we can get... The Hotel Californian is sweet - boutique, but spread across three buildings just across the street from the Wharf and beach. Will be easy to go dip the back tire in the ocean tomorrow AM... It's an impressive group - many have done the cross-USA northern route and one woman has done FOUR cross country trips. A good number of 'just retireds' and one Englishman and an Aussie. 26 of us doing (hopefully) the full distance and 4 just going to Taos, NM. Also heard that two people had to drop out last year because their saddle sores were so bad (and infected - not a good piece of real estate for that..)