Even More Family! Part 1

If you've been reading the past few weeks of blogs, you've seen my posts about our visit last month from Jim and Leigh, my brother and sister-in-law.  They headed out on a Thursday morning, and the next Saturday afternoon, Mom came into town!  Everybody wants to come to Long Beach in August!

Mom arrived without issue and since she flew into Long Beach itself (a seriously great airport, and sometimes, even worth an extra leg of the trip it takes), it was a quick jaunt around the corner to pick her up.

Welcome to the LBC!

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out and getting settled at home, and around 5, we hailed an Uber to take us to downtown Long Beach and the Queen Mary.  The Queen Mary has been in Long Beach for a good 30 years now, and while you can take tours, we instead planned to head to their stern bar (the bar on the stern of the ship - not a strict one - hee, boat humor!) to have some cocktails and enjoy the art deco elegance.  Unfortunately, when we arrived, we found the QM recently changed its policy and just to go up to the bar, we'd have to pay $32 EACH for a tour as well.  Given the rest of our schedule that evening and the exorbitant price, we declined, choosing to snap some selfies instead.

Our initial plan included riding the free shuttle bus (the Passport) from the Queen Mary across the bridge and back to DTLB, and when we asked of its availability, we were told that while it was still running, its normal stop steps from the QM's entrance had been moved about a half mile down the road, past the gigantic outdoor concert that was currently occurring in the Queen Mary Events Park.  Figuring we could head to the upstairs, outdoor bar at our dinner destination, BO-Beau Kitchen and Roof Tab, and have cocktails there, we started our hike.

We may have taken a few wrong turns on said hike,

but we made it there eventually!

We grabbed the bus without incident, and we progressed across the bridge and past all sorts of notable downtown attractions (the aquarium, Shoreline Village, and so on), eventually arriving at BO-Beau and heading upstairs.  Our cocktails were great, and we killed time munching on buffalo cauliflower while we waited for our dinner table to be ready.  Dinner was also great - I had the ratatouille, Mom enjoyed her shrimp and grits, and Chris had some sort of red meat, if I remember correctly (I know it was tasty, whatever it was).  We caught an Uber home and after chilling out on the couch for just a bit, headed to bed.

The next morning, a Sunday, Chris and I woke up stupid early (that happens sometimes - shocking, I know), and we took the kiddo outside to the back porch to keep things quiet while Mom snoozed a bit longer.

She's super good at using her dog cot

Eventually, everyone got moving properly, and we put together one of our favorite "people are visiting" brunch dishes, a red shakshuka made with harissa.  Like we've done in the past, Chris also ran to the Merchant, a nearby bakery/coffee shop, and grabbed one of their giant, delicious cinnamon rolls for all of us to split.

Time for noms!

After breakfast, we got dressed, and Mom and I packed up the big car for a road trip!  When we were planning her visit to the west coast, we decided a short diversion out of the LA area would be fun; Mom's been to San Francisco a few times and San Diego once now (on her last trip to see us), but CA is a big state, and I wanted to share some of our favorite, slightly less local spots with her.  On this day, we'd head from our house to Santa Barbara, a drive of about 2 hours, and we'd stay there for the night.

About an hour out of Long Beach, we decided to stop for a bathroom break, and since we were out west, we figured a quick snack at a local institution couldn't hurt either.

We made it to Santa Barbara without issue, and we ditched the car in a parking garage not too far from State Street, the main drag through downtown.  Heading to a later lunch at Benchmark Eatery, we grabbed a few shots of the area:

Lunch at Benchmark was great - we each sipped some wine, and we split a cheese board and the chicken banh mi sandwich.  After all of that food, we strolled a bit more, attempting to burn off some calories while seeing the city.  When Chris and I visited the area a few years back, one of my favorite locations was the city's historic Courthouse, and I knew Mom would love it and its amazing architecure as well.

Where the white women at?

Like when Chris and I visited, Mom and I had a chance to go up the clock tower and look out over the city:

Rough scenery to look at, right?

We strolled for a bit more, and then recovered the car and headed to our lodging for the night, a casita we found on Airbnb.  Check in was no issue at all, and we settled in before getting ready to head back out on the town for the evening.

Pictures of our little casita for the night - 

we had a full kitchen, two bedrooms,

and a bathroom!

Our casita was about 1.5 miles away from downtown, so while we planned to Uber home after dinner and our assorted evening shenanigans, we initially headed out on foot since the sun was still up.  Dinner wasn't until 7, so we had some time to stop at another one of my favorite Santa Barbara spots, Lama Dog, a bottle shop and tap room.  Since the last time we'd visited, an actual brewery and winery had joined the Lama Dog complex, although some sort of weird zoning/permitting issue wouldn't allow you to enjoy the fruits of one space in that of another (it was extra strange because each space was divided only by a Pinterest-y row of pallets or something equally flimsy).  Regardless, we persevered!

Mom, enjoying her peanut butter porter - on nitro!

Lama Dog was the spot a few years back where Chris and I found a totally unexpected surprise - a bottle of Westvleteren 12, commonly considered one of the rarest and best beers in the world.  When Mom and I got settled with our brews, I checked the same corner and behold, the same outcome!

Score!

After our time at Lama Dog, we headed to dinner at Loquita, a nearby tapas spot.  They had a neat selection of sherry, which Mom tasted while I enjoyed one of their cocktails.

They seem to have as much spare basil laying around

as we do at home.

We ate all sorts of delicious things at Loquita, including the beef carpaccio and mushroom dishes pictured below; both were good, but the carpaccio was downright delicious - we even sold our table neighbors into ordering some.

After stuffing ourselves crazy at Loquita, we strolled up State Street for dessert at McConnell's Ice Cream, a local institution.  The wait was insane, but the ice cream was delicious, so it was worth it.

The line at McConnell's - in fairness,

it is really good ice cream.

Completely full by this point, we grabbed an Uber and took a quick ride back to the Airbnb.  Time to hit the hay - tomorrow, we'd head further north along the coast and then inward to Paso Robles!

Later!

Amy