Heading up the coast

Rob and I went to Santa Barbara last weekend for a quick little getaway. We had such a blast, it was such a great little romantic weekend! The drive up was glorious, we decided to drive the long, scenic way up hugging the coast the whole time...once we got off that stupid 405, that is. Have I mentioned I hate driving through L.A? Because I do.

The sun was shining, the top was down, and all was good with the world. We made pretty good time, too, and got there in 4 hours! We checked in and immediately went down to the pier for lunch. Our hotel was in the cutest little neighborhood, just far enough off the beach and State street to make for a quiet, nice walk.

Lunch at Longboards was great - we even saw dolphins! We ate our weight in seafood and enjoyed a post-drive cocktail.
We enjoyed dorking around the pier for a while...
We walked all around town that first day and enjoyed looking at all the shops on State Street. We stopped in for a quick beer at a bar down the street from our hotel and were stoked to find they had Trivial Pursuit questions to keep you occupied. But then we saw they had a contest advertised for a "Cruel Prawn". Apparently if you eat 5 of them in 15 minutes, you'll get your picture on the wall. Of course we were intrigued and had to try one. HOLY CRAP, one was plenty! They coated it with thick habanero paste which for the first 20 seconds actually tasted quite delicious. And then the pain set in. For the next 15 minutes we were in pain central. Seriously. That stuff could have peeled the paint off a wall. I love spicy food but that was over the top. Glad we didn't go for 5 or my belly would have been an unhappy place. Not to mention the buckets of sweat that would pour out. Whew!For dinner, we had been eagerly anticipating a Cajun restaurant The Palace Grill highly recommended by a friend of mine. Holy crap! Laissez les bons temps roulez, for sure. We stuffed ourselves silly with the best spicy creole food around...it was phenomenal and not to be missed next time you're in Santa Barbara. Rob was pretty stoked on his jalapeno martini:And I enjoyed my food coma:

What a fun day...we packed a lot in! Tomorrow: Solvang and Santa Ynez valley!

More pics from our day: