Santa Barbara – Hikes, Sprouts, and Ice Cream

Harold’s Thoughtful Person of the Day: Norma from Ojai Valley Sprouts

If you have never been to California, Santa Barbara is certainly not a bad place to start. It is a stunningly beautiful little city on the Pacific coast about 2 hours north of LA. With mountains as a backdrop and palm trees everywhere, it’s not hard for us to forget about nor’easters and shoveling.  Check out this panorama of Shoreline Park.

Harold’s sister Izzy is going to school for this spring semester of her junior year at Westmont College here in Santa Barbara. Hiking and nature are one of Susan’s joys and so we thought it would be thoughtful to team up to surprise her.  Izzy took her on an amazing hike for some mother daughter time….while my brother Mark and nephew Daniel who drove up from Orange County and myself watched Harold and had some “Guy Time”, including basketball and as usual Harold hoped for ice cream!!

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After their hike, the girls met the boys downtown to check out the farmers market, and visit with Mark’s sister-in-law Norma, who operates Ojai Valley Sprouts.  Susan and Izzy are both very health conscience, so Norma offering them sprouts was why she got Harold’s Thoughtful Person of the Day award!! Thank you Norma!

Click here for a link to Ojai Valley Sprouts website or here for their FB page.  Ojai Valley Sprouts was founded by Buddy Barnett, my brother Mark’s father-in-law, and Norma’s  father.  Harold thought it would be thoughtful to post this picture to honor Buddy, and it would help explain the story how he started the business and Norma took it over.

Click here for a general link to Santa Barbara’s Farmers Market.

After a much needed sit down delicious dinner at The Natural Cafe ,  we stopped at Coldstone Creamery , well let’s be honest Mark and Harold reminded everyone that we did agree that we would have ice cream every day while on vacation!!!  We all love our ice cream!!!

By the way, while in Santa Barbara we stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott.  We found the accommodations comfortable, and we made  sure to book a room with a roll in shower.  It is important to note that when booking your reservations that a handicapped accessible room does not necessarily mean that the shower is a roll in.  Some times its a tub with the grab rails only.  Again just be sure to ask lots of questions on location of the room, and the specifics within the room.

The pool and hot tub outside both had an accessible lift to lower Harold in the water, but we unfortunately did not have time this time to make use of the pool/hot tub.  Coffee by the pool every morning however was rejuvenating.

Santa Barbara also proved to be a great place for us to exercise and get Harold out on his new racer.  There is nothing like running or biking by the water.  From an accessibility standpoint, these trails were either paved or very hard packed sand.  The pics speak for themselves.  After this, we were off to LA to pick up Steve’s son Chase in LA, and heading to Joshua Tree  National Park which is 3 hours east of LA.