We were amazed with the amount of bike paths, including many paths completely separated from roads, upon arrival in Santa Barbara. There are even bike traffic circles and bikes have the right of way over pedestrians! We were very lucky that Tim made it his mission to find us some bicycles. That was a main mode of transport for several weeks while we (mostly Adam) combed Craigslist for used cars. After a couple test drives, we were wondering why on earth people sell cars with the check engine light on. We certainly weren’t interested in purchasing a car that seems doomed. There were several stints of long bus rides followed by short test drives and then another long bus ride. A russian guy was selling a VW Jetta, when we said we weren’t interested he offered us to look at a different car. He shook a heavy key chain and said he had 5 cars that he was selling. Huh? Who has five cars! It was pretty strange. Eventually we found a guy, Richard, selling his 2001 Mazda Tribute (think Ford Escape). When the sale was complete, Richard was so sad to see the car go that he hid behind his house so that he wouldn’t see us drive away. It was pretty cute.
Now that we have wheels, we’ve been exploring a bit. We saw a rocket launcher up in the hills (Adam thinks it might be a water collection tower, but I’m positive it was a rocket launcher). We also went on a hike and came across a 4ft snake lying across the trail. It wasn’t interested in moving out of the way until after I poked it with a stick.
*Disclaimer: Apparently, according to Adam and his "street skills", a whip is a car. I thought that I'd better translate cause a whip is a silly word for car... *
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