Deep Freeze

I found a group of pictures from Mid January that were taken to illustrate how cold it was. My car thermometer had 1°F and another showing the weather station readout at home showed .6°F. This photo shows the extreme frostiness on the windows.

I don't even remember what it feels like to be that cold. It's like a furnace out there on the day I'm writing this.

Frozen Old Man

Last December there was a big pile of snow in the parking lot outside of my window.

This pile looks like an old man that was frozen after falling down on his side.

Except for the yellow pole that would be coming up through his back.

Wintery Landscape

I missed posting some photographs from the winter, which are odd to look at when it's 90° out, but interesting, too.

This was a foggy day, with the air saturated with moisture from the snow. I had taken Zach out to see the Elk at Fleming and drove around Jacomo on my old 8 mile running track around the southeast side of the lake.

Winter Owl

I was looking back at my December 2009 photos and found these photos of an owl that we spotted the first day I took Zach to see the Elk at Fleming Park.

It was an overcast and snow-foggy day, so the light was poor enough that I could not get a clear picture, but it's still pretty cool. The owl was about 40 feet away and believed itself to be invisible.

Steamy Playground

There was a case of restlessness on Sunday, right about the time that the thermometer was pushing 96 degrees.

This is why we had the playground to ourselves and a red faced baby by the time we were through.

For some reason, Zach likes the horizontal ladder, even though it's out of his reach. How did he figure that out?

Johnny Ray's Classic Cars

There is a tiny drive-in in Lee's Summit that has been there as long as I can remember. Johnny Ray Jr. was in my class at High School, but the restaurant was named after his father, if I remember correctly.

They have these little corn fritter things that we get an urge for from time to time, and when we went in on Saturday afternoon, we saw that they also have a Classic Car rally from time to time.

Many of these model cars were being restored and used by people my age in High School, but some were quite exotic.

Bad Fad

First it was baggy jeans with the underwear sticking out over the top.

Now it's pants on the head, looking like a Court Jester.

I'm not sure I approve of this new fad, but it's too late. Cousin Cole has already infected Zach.

Corn Envy

Zach is learning about his cousin's sweet corn business. Actually, all he cares about is how you can throw them.

Children of the Corn

For years now, my brother Warren has grown and picked Sweet Corn as a College Fund for the boys. They sell out each truck full of corn in less than an hour usually.

I'm sure they get sick of my reference to them as Children of the Corn. Hell, I've never even seen the movie or read the book.

Chalk Art at the Mission

The parking lot in front of the Mission was covered with chalk art.

I've seen art festivals like this before. There's something interesting about the fact that the works will be washed away by the rain eventually, that they are temporary. I think in California they are less temporary than they would be in Kansas City. We get more rain, by my impression.

There was no shortage of themes, from Reggae and Marti Gras. There were portraits that reminded me of Thomas Hart Benton, to ones that looked like a Kansas Album Cover.

My favorite by far was Leonardo da Vinci flying over the Mission in a primative hang glider.

People in California must do art like we do barbeque. Always practicing.

The Mission at Santa Barbara

We found the Mission the same way we found the Botanical Gardens. It was listed as a local attraction in the hotel's little information binder.

The Mission was built in 1786, and had a beautiful fountain and old lavanderia, or laundry washing basin out front, all fed by an extensive aqueduct system.

The stones were impressive, I wondered how they quarried and moved such massive stones over 200 years ago.

The Hills of Santa Barbara

I was surprised at the California coast, as it immediately transitions into low mountains, which frame a narrow strip where all the people live from the beach to the foothills.

Above Santa Barbara, the terrain quickly becomes too steep and rugged to build on easily. There are trails and orchards, but little development.

These are the Santa Ynez mountains and much of it is National Forest or Forest Reserve, but it's not clear where the borders start since the terrain is so rugged and there are little roads into it.

We went to a Botanical Garden up in the hills on the first day and then back the next day to hike to the top of the near peaks to look over the city.

It was hot and dry, with a layer of finely churned up dust on the trail. Andrea read that this was a Chaparral Forest, and we heard talk about recent fires in the area that had burned up much of the trees.

We saw plenty of evidence of fires, but there was also regrowth. I wouldn't know how to recognize one tree from another, but there were not many large trees in the area. It had a feeling of a dry desert like climate.

A Room with a View

We stayed at the Best Western right on the beach, on the west end of the strip, kind of behind the harbor. There was a city pool, called Los Banos Del Mar Pool across the street near the entrance to the harbor. Across the side street was a city park, Plaza Del Mar. It was a very pretty sight to look out to.

Life on the Wharf

Santa Barbara has a harbor featuring Stearns Wharf. This almost half mile long structure was originally built in 1872 and has had some fires and rebuilding since, but remains in service since then.

There were little excursion craft going in and out of the harbor just off the wharf, as well as pelican's diving for dinner and gulls posing for pictures by the tourists.

It was very touristy, yet still charming and fun.

Protesters and Beggars

One thing I did notice was a prevalence of homeless people in sunny Santa Barbara. They were non-obtrusive and mostly hidden out of sight under the pier, but they were often out there to be seen, too. At the entrance to the wharf, they had creative little pleas for donations set up, and Andrea wondered if anyone had done a case study on what method generated the most donations.

Behind this was a war protest. It was set up over a big portion of beach, where the demonstration was laid out as a graveyard for those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It looked a little like a mini Arlington, except for the beach background. The organizer told us that there were about 4000 crosses for the Iraqi dead and around 1000 tombstones for the Afghani dead. That's just US soldiers killed, not counting wounded, and not trying to tally non-American casualties.

The next day I went running along the beach and there was no trace of the demonstration. All the crosses and other displays had been taken down.

At the end of the pier, we saw a fake Elvis lip-syncing to Elvis tunes for donations. On the way back by later, I noticed that a cluster of the homeless where trying to get the Elvis back up on the sidewalk to continue his performance. He was obviously hammered, and just as obviously one of the homeless. He was their front man in the little operation. It was sad to see that even amongst the homeless, there is a hierarchy of exploitation.

That next day, during the run, I noticed many of the homeless camped out on the beach. A few had shopping carts, and they had a tent they were sharing. I could smell them from 30 feet away. I wondered if they ever bathed in the ocean or washed their clothes in the public baths. They also stayed in the amphitheater in the park across from our hotel, which provided a nice open air view, with coverage from any rain that may come.

All in all, they were the lucky, as far as homeless go. They were not being rounded up and moved away, and they got to live on the beach in the warm sunny California climate. But still, I did not envy them.

Now That's California

There was a skate park on the beach at Santa Barbara, which is what I would have expected from California.

We watched the people for about 5 minutes, and I saw no really spectacular feats, but it was entertaining. I wondered if the city realized that they were getting free entertainment by allowing all these skillful youths to perform for us. They certainly weren't getting paid.

One guy did do something that was somewhat impressive. He road a wheelie all the way around the rim of the sunken pit with one hand while holding a cell phone up to his ear with the other. This is proof that the younger generation can multi-task quite skillfully. Of course, he wasn't actually talking to someone on the phone, it was just up to his ear as a prop. I defy him to repeat the trick with his girlfriend breaking up with him on the other end of the line.

Crazy Buses

In the parking lot next to the beach, a lot of eccentric people gathered.

I saw two buses, one an old VW van, straight from the Hippie days, but this time with a different message. The Bible Answer Bus only had a few answers on the outside, and the mysterious curtains inside the van behind the driver's seat kept opening and closing while I was looking at the van. I felt like I was being watched. I wondered if the inhabitants normally come out with turbans on and give you your fortune, but I guess that's another religion.

The next van was the incredibly over-decorated "One Love" van, complete with more action figures than you'll ever see in one setting. Much of it was spaceship themed from science fiction movies, but there were also a few Lord of the Rings action figures visible amongst the starships.

The man was accosted by a couple of Irish tourists and seemed thrilled with the attention. It's better than gluing on more action figures. I wonder what happens when it rains? How does he wash his van? What did he use for adhesive? If someone kicks up a rock in front of him on the highway, does the Millennium Falcon's laser turrets get smashed in? Who insures him?

Practical questions like these probably never enter the mind of a much misunderstood artist such as the owner of the One Love Van.

Ominous Silhouettes on the Horizon

When we arrived in LA, it was cool and cloudy. The sky was misty and overcast, and visibility was less than a mile, most of the time. The next afternoon, about the time we arrived in Santa Barbara, the weather finally started clearing up and you could see out to sea somewhat. Andrea asked me at one point if those big shapes out there were ships, and I thought they were too big and too stationary to be ships. It only took me a short time to realize (guess, really) that they were oil rigs. I never got a really clear look at one until the next day, but the coast off of Santa Barbara is thick with them.

I vaguely remembered that there had been some kind of spill or accident in California, and that California had banned offshore drilling years ago. This is something I learned a couple of years ago when offshore drilling was a big political issue and people were pushing to do more of it in the Gulf. I remembered people being critical of environmentalists for blocking this important source of energy, and at some point, I heard about the California ban, but no details about how it came about.

When I got back, I looked it up, and it turned out that the spill was from a Union Oil Company rig that had a methane blowout after being given permission to cut corners and operate below federal and state standards in the way the well was cased with pipe.

200,000 gallons of oil were released, and the following spring, Earth Day was started, in part due to a response to the spill. At the time, Union Oil Company President Fred L. Hartley said, "I don't like to call it a 'disaster', because there has been no loss of human life. I am amazed at the publicity for the loss of a few birds."

The rigs are still there.

Santa Barbara Art Fair

When we arrived at Santa Barbara, we were drawn to the beach, and on that day, the beach was lined with booths of artists, showing their wares.

While we managed not to buy anything, it was a most excellent backdrop for an art fair.

Palms of Santa Barbara

When we got to Santa Barbara, we saw that the beachfront was lined with palms, all in a long row. The trunks were almost 6 stories high, and the foliage was just a little tuft on the top. I'm always surprised that the little bit of green can support these enormous trees.