Regular readers will recall that I lived in Santa Barbara for seven years while in graduate school.
The city's basically a resort town, with a few colleges and universities thrown in, as well as some key industries, including high-tech and defense-related firms (especially back in the early-1990s, when at that time a powerful slow-growth movement slowed economic development in the county).
There's a bunch of opportunities for outdoor activities in Santa Barbara.
One thing I used to love was going for long summer drives. We'd start up in Goleta, heading down south a few miles from Cathedral Oaks, then cut back west into Santa Barbara proper via Highway 144, coming out along the city's lower downtown. Then we'd cut back up north along Cabrillo Boulevard by the main beach, following that back north and around, all the way up to Hope Ranch, along some of the coastal bluffs overlooking the Pacific, until we'd come back out to Highway 101 at the La Cumbre Plaza mall, where we'd stop for a bite to eat or some shopping.
This was especially common for me when my oldest son was born, and on weekends when my wife was working, I'd load up my kid - who was still in a baby car-seat at the time - and head out for a drive to kill some time in the late afternoons or early evenings.
On a couple of occassions, when we'd come up around Shoreline Drive, past Santa Barbara City College, where we'd sometimes stop at the roadway pullout to take in the sights, and we'd find a spectacular view of missile launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The launches would light up the whole sky, and it seemed almost like a natural phenomenon, when the trailings of the rockets mixed up with the distant clouds on the horizon amid a purplish sunset. It's was very beautiful.
The image above is from the New York Times, photo-essay, "The Rise of Rockets."
The Vandenberg photo brought back the memories, which I thought I'd share as part of my "lightening up" series.
I miss those times quite a bit, but on to new adventures they say!
Happy Mother's Day to all my friends and readers!
Photo Credit: New York Times
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