Fun in Santa Barbara with Kids

Dusty from our camping adventure, our day in Santa Barbara was marvelous. We could have planned a couple of components of the day more efficiently, still we all had fun.

We started our day at the Santa Barbara Farmer's Market. The plus side of the market is that the Santa Barbara Certified Farmers Market website is wonderful. It allows you to easily find a Market any day of the week in Santa Barbara County. The negative is that many of our Northern California farmers markets are much better. The Market had a lot of fresh produce, and flowers ... but lacked in food vendors and butchers. I had hoped to buy our dinner fixings there, but came away empty handed.

From the Farmers Market we headed to the Santa Barbara Roasting Company for breakfast. It is a crunchy, granola coffee house, with tasty pastries and excellent coffee. Our boys were less than well behaved, so we had to cut our visit short, and finish our breakfast in the car. 

We then headed to a State Beach. I had picked El Capitan State Beach, 10 miles North of Santa Barbara. However Jonathan and I didn't discuss where lunch was located. He had found a kid friendly restaurant that we thought was in Santa Barbara, but was actually 10 miles South in Carpenteria near Carpenteria State Beach ... see the lack of efficiency.

It was a cloudy but mild day in Santa Barbara. The temperatures were in the mid 70s, which had two benefits -- first, we were very comfortable at the beach, we didn't even need to bring out our umbrella, and second, there were very few people at the beach. After splashing in the waves, and playing in the sand, Jonathan, Xander and Caleb then took advantage of the outdoor showers to soap up and remove some of their camping dust. I used the sink to wash my face, and untangle my hair.

We then drove twenty miles to The Beach Grill at Padaro which is the best kid friendly restaurant we have ever been to. I am not understating how wonderful this place is for families. It is right on the beach, and has plenty of outdoor picnic seating. It has a bridge over a river of sand. In the river of sand it has tons of beach toys, shovels, buckets, dump trucks and bulldozers. The boys gleefully hopped between playing in the sand, and eating lunch at the picnic table.

The food was great. Often when a restaurant targets families, the food is not the highlight ... but both Jonathan and my "pub fare" lunches were crave worthy.

The other surprise, is that the train runs right next to the restaurant. So, at the end of lunch when the Amtrak train rushed by, both our boys screamed with joy.

We called our trip short, and headed to a hotel in San Luis Obispo on Saturday night. We are still figuring out how with better planning we can do this trip again soon. It might be camping at a private campsite, or it might be booking a cheap hotel, but the wonderful day we had in Santa Barbara was worth repeating.