The Thursday before I picked up Jun for our one-night stay in Santa Barbara, my car died. I had to have it towed to the Tesla dealership in Costa Mesa to replace the 12V battery. 12V battery?? I thought Teslas had one big bad battery that powered everything, but it turned out there is a 12V battery that performs similar functions as the ones in internal combustion vehicles. And mine just happened to fail earlier than usual - they're supposed to last up to 4 years. Anyway, I got my car back the following morning thanks to Tesla's speedy service.
The following day - Friday - I picked up Jun and we headed towards Santa Barbara via the same route (405N to 101N) that I'd traveled once a week for over 3.5 years while I worked in Thousand Oaks. Except, this time COVID-19 had alleviated bumper to bumper traffic typical of normal driving conditions on the most awful freeway in SoCal: The 101.
Our Santa Barbara hotel, the Hyatt Place, charged $9.99 for parking per night - not a warm and fuzzy welcome. I can't remember the last time I was charged a parking fee at a hotel - maybe courtesy of COVID-19?
The following morning, we headed to Mission Santa Barbara, only to find out everything but the gift shop was closed. So I took a picture of Jun taking a picture of me, and after visiting the gift shop, we drove to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, ordered two tickets online per the parking lot notice posted. This was an interesting proposition: Most of the museum's exhibits were indoors and shuttered because of COVID. The only two attractions were the Butterfly Pavilion, and Dr. Dolphin's shtick on dolphins and whales. I'm not sure why the fine folks at the museum didn't feel compelled to inform the unsuspecting patrons in advance that COVID had sidelined most exhibits, but had I known, I would've preferred to spend my limited time (and money) elsewhere. However, since the $30 fee for two is considered tax deductible donation, I'll just think of it charitable support to help the museum through tough times.
I took this picture of a butterfly with a broken wing. We saw many such wounded soldiers in the Pavilion, and surprisingly, these missing parts did not seem to affect the butterflies' flight. We were told by one of the employees broken wings are either from old age, or mishaps from running into things. Butterflies with broken wings become easier prey as their escape velocity reduces.
And a picture of our exit from the beautiful Butterfly Pavilion. We left, went downtown, parked near the Sterns Wharf in the Santa Barbara harbor, walked to the end of the wharf and back - later, I found out the top of my head cooked there at some point. We ate lunch at Helena Avenue Bakery (food was great, but menu limited) - and drove back home. Along the drive back, we stopped by one of the 'middle of nowhere' beaches with summer homes, and in Thousand Oaks to visit one of my tenants for the first time. As of late, my tenant and I have become best friends navigating through the maize of feces Home Depot Warranty has laid out for us in our quest to get my LG fridge compressor replaced. And I thought LG was top of the line..... whatevs.
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