LA. Day 4. Dessert to go to stay.
Today, Tzvi’s parents and family friends Larry and Lynn Martinek, came for breakfast at the hotel. Larry is the founder of Mathnasium, an after-school math learning center; if you haven’t heard of it there are centers all over the world, including on Central Avenue near Crawfords. Nice to catch up with them.
After breakfast we decided to take a walk on Rodeo drive, except about 3 minutes after leaving the hotel, Hallie had a meltdown when I didn’t hold her hand crossing the street. It lasted about 35 minutes, almost the entire walk, so that was fun. At one point she was just running up and down Beverly Drive barefoot and tantruming. And then she tried to climb into my jeans. Don’t even ask.
After that whole ordeal we went back to the hotel, packed up, got on the road and headed to Santa Barbara for our vacation from vacation? Hallie slept the whole way, which was fantastic. It took us about 2 hours to get there.
Our hotel in Santa Barbara is the Ritz Carlton Baccara, and it’s actually about 15 minutes north of Santa Barbara in Goletta. We got there before Tzvi’s parents, checked in and went to the room. The resort is huge and made up of about a dozen different buildings with the rooms are all spread around in different villas. They use golf carts to take you around – you can call anytime, anywhere for a ride. Our room is very nice. I don’t know how else to describe it except for kind of “campy,” or maybe a 5 star camp? I guess it’s just Santa Barbara Spanish architecture – lots of tile and white.
We changed into bathing suits and went to the pool because it was so nice out. We ordered some chips and guac, I got tofu and avocado and Tzvi had fish tacos. Obviously we got cocktails too. Hallie loved the pool and also discovered the hot tub, her new favorite. We started by only letting her put her feet it, but then she just sat down on the steps. Hope she doesn’t get any infections.
We had dinner at a place in town called Benchmark Eatery. Dinner was good, and then we ordered dessert. Then once we finished dessert, Mark ordered another dessert. He asked for the candied pistachios to go (for Hallie’s sake), but they brought the entire dessert to go. So he unpacked the entire thing and ate it there.
We have connecting rooms, so after we got Hallie to bed, Tzvi and I went up to the bar and ordered a Kahlua and cream. We sat outside by a fireplace. It was a little chilly but overall very nice out.
