Santa Barbara, CA

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A New California Family

We planned

Cousin Jorgia with her children and grandchildren - quite a gang!

a stopover in Santa Barbara to meet up with Eric's second cousin Jorgia and her family. While there, she let us stay in her home, which we really appreciated. Eric hadn't seen any of this branch of the family since he was a little boy.

Many of the "new" relatives we met weren't even alive at the time. Jorgia has several grandchildren that have only been around for the last several years! The whole gang come over one night to Jorgia's house for a big family dinner (left). It was very fun to meet the whole group!

We also got to meet some good friends of Jorgia's, Art and Bobbi. Art is a real slave-driver when it comes to boat work... he got Eric to work on the teak toe rails night and day while we were in town. Actually, he is just very motivating - an incredibly hard worker, even while not at work! He owns a wooden boat that is just spectacular! Both he and Bobbi were amazing people that we were VERY glad to have met.

The rest of our time in Santa Barbara involved hanging out with Jorgia and her house mate Debra. They are hilarious when they are together! They were in the process of watching back-issues of The Sopranos, a mafia drama series on HBO. We watched one episode and then got hooked into the whole sequence with them. We both thought that it was more fun hearing and watching Jorgia and Debra's reaction to the show than actually seeing the show! At scary points, Jorgia did this great turtle impersonation, hiding her head below her sweatshirt. When we finally left, we really missed both of them!

... and A New Haircut Too!

Before the haircut...

Okay, the verdict's out...

... and after!

Sun showers just don't cut it - so the barber did! In order to conserve water and still keep clean, we have two sun showers on board - bags of water that you lift up and let gravity help sprinkle water onto your head while day-dreaming of a real shower. Actually, it's not so bad when you don't have copious amounts of hair to wash. SO, Angela finally caved and got a haircut.

The final decision had to do with the fact that if the hair you are having cut off is at least 10 inches long, you can send it in to Locks of Love to be used to make wigs for children that are undergoing chemotherapy. Twelve inches later (right), washing her hair takes less water and less time - and is MUCH cooler!  Cute too!  :)

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