Tortoise at the Santa Barbara Zoo

Because of all the rain we’ve been having, Martine and I haven’t gone on any road trips lately. Today, we drove to Santa Barbara, had a great seafood lunch, and went to the Santa Barbara Zoo. Unlike the Los Angeles Zoo, there are usually fewer than 10,000 visitors present; and consequently there is about 76% less chance of having an infant stroller destroy your ankles.

Mind you, there were many small children in attendance. But that is to be expected at any zoo. It’s one of the few places one can take one’s small progeny and allow them to act like kids without inflicting too much damage to the animals and other visitors.

We’ve been visiting the Santa Barbara Zoo for upwards of twenty years, so we were saddened to hear that the two Asian elephants, Sujatha and Little Mac, died in 2019; and the zoo is not planning to replace them. Instead, their large compound is now an Australian “walkabout.”

On the way back, we took the pleasant and very rural California 126 to avoid the usual traffic jam around Oxnard and Ventura. We stopped at Francisco’s Fruit Stand in Fillmore to buy some honey, strawberries, and mandarins. I was shocked to find that taking 126 and I-405 in Santa Clarita takes no more time and eats up no more miles than taking either the Pacific Coast Highway to U.S. 101 or taking U.S. 101 all the way.

Unfortunately, Martine was in considerable pain from a pinched nerve in the back that has been bothering her for several years and getting progressively worse. Unless she finds a way of ameliorating her condition, we may not be able to go on many more trips together.