With the Valley baking in the low 100’s, we escaped, only for the day, up the coast to Santa Barbara.

After you pass Ventura, the road along the ocean opens up and the blue sky meets the blue ocean. The wonderfully named Summerland quickly approaches, then the mannered elegance of Montecito with its barely visible estates… and finally the quirky left-side-off-the-freeway exit to Santa Barbara.

We came into Santa Barbara on that winding drive along a lushly landscaped ocean park: volleyball players on the beach, tourists on rented bicycles and four seater pedal machines. We walked onto the glistening ocean pier of yachts, kayaks, surfers and ruddy faced old men with martinis in hand.

Later on, we went to the top of the Santa Barbara Court House, an elegant Spanish-Moorish delight from the 1920’s with a roof top tower that overlooks the entire magnificent city. Mountains, red tiles and clear skies in every direction.

Maybe Santa Barbara is only an illusion, or a facade, but it’s convicingly seductive. Like a teen ager in love, it lasts only a minute, but while it does, you think there is nowhere else on earth you would rather be.