I'll be there, to hold you tight..

Canary Hotel, Santa Barbara

Just got home from a most lovely Valentine's weekend. Chris and I headed up the coast to Santa Barbara, and I got to share the place I call home with him. It was such a great time getting to show someone around, and getting to fall in love with Santa Barbara all over again. It really is such a beautiful, magical place and all of us who have gotten to live there at one point or another most definitely took it for granted. He had booked us at my favorite hotel in Santa Barbara, the Canary. It's the perfect place to say when you want to be right in the middle of everything, and it's style is so true to Santa Barbara. Plus there is no better view than that from the roof top pool.

Of course a trip to Santa Barbara isn't complete for me without a meal at Carlito's. I have raved about the food for months, and I think Chris acknowledged that I wasn't fronting, it really is deeeelish (+ those mango margaritas....) Sadly, we weren't even close to hungry by our 9:15 reservation at Cafe Luck, so we made a meal out of oysters and onion rings. We were underwhelmed by just about everything at Cafe Luck, so perhaps it was a blessing we weren't starving.

After a night of heavenly sleep (the beds at the Canary are one of my favorites) we were off to Wine Country. I was so excited to take him to my FAVORITE place in all of Santa Ynez Valley- House Tasting Room, owned by the epic Saarloos family. I couldn't wait to try the newest wines and eat more than a couple of the out of this world Enjoy cupcakes. As we pulled up to Grand Ave. in Los Olivos I was DEVASTATED to see that House was closed because they were sold out!! Apparently Valentine's Day was the day to be up there, and we missed out. So we trudged along Grand Avenue, and stopped into Coquelicot for a tasting. After a lovely time chatting and a bottle of Chardonnay and Riesling later, we stopped into Los Olivos Cafe where I filled my burger fix. Then it was nap time so we headed to Hotel Corque in Solvang, which on the website claimed to be a "boutique" hotel. Though there wasn't anything "boutique" about it, the rooms were lovely, as were the views. Over napped a little, and unbeknownst to us all of the wineries closed at 5, so we just made it to a little tasting room a block from the hotel. If you haven't had the joy of exploring Solvang, then you can't know the bizarreness of the place. Chris loved its kitschy-ness and lack of pretention, but personally its a little over the top for my taste. I prefer the langour of Los Olivos, Los Alamos and Santa Ynez. But we did have a wonderful dinner at Root 246.

Overall I cherished every second of our lovely trip. I haven't really had a moment's reprieve since moving to Los Angeles, and sometimes you don't even realize how much this city has wiped you out.