Day 2: Don't Go to Montecito

First stop of the day was "Kid's World," which I nominate for "best playground of all time." The idea behind Kid's World was that Bob Leathers, a playground architect whom I have tremendous respect for, organized groups of local kids to plan, design, and fundraise for the project. The results show that kids have a better idea of how to capture imagination than adults do (logical, really) - the thing is huge, and full of tiny hidden passages and diverse structures. A maze for your imagination. I have plans to visit Leather's other playgrounds located around the country - a pity there isn't a handy map of all of them. They really are a work of genius:







I opted for the mountain route out of Santa Barbara, and about halfway up decided to check out a long, windy sideroad boasting the promising title of "Rainbow Cave." I ended up right in the middle of a genuine rainforest - or at any rate, as close as you can get to a rainforest in California. Waterfalls, exotic curly trees, moss-covered rocks, and of course I happened upon it as it was sharing space with a misty raincloud. And while Hector Zazou's tribal music was blaring out of my speakers, enhancing the "jungle" mood.

The road, as viewed before I trekked off into the wild:


A beautiful, gigantic rock I passed by:


The "Rainbow Cave" itself, which has been barred off for some reason. Presumably to keep people from carving or drawing over the ancient cave paintings (which, from the outside, look suspiciously like the work of a clever enteprenuer):


The highest point I felt safe climbing to. If not for the cloud, you could have probably seen all the way down to the city from here:


After making my way out of the forest (and the raincloud), I passed by the beautiful lake (insert name of forgotten lake here), always one of my favorite parts of the SB area. If I were ever making a movie and needed a set for "the land of milk and honey," this would be it. This photo doesn't do it justice. It's like, while coming down the mountain road, you're suddenly surrounded by a lake on *all* sides. In and around the lake, mountains come out of the sky... and they, um, stand there. Words don't do it justice either, but take my word for it, it's something worth seeing:



Of course, I'll probably run into a lake ten times better than this one on my travels, at which point my praise of this view will become outdated.

Music: The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. I only had their first album and a live concert until the other day, when I scored a two-fer of the third and fourth records. Imagine AC/DC (only crossed with 10cc or Queen), churning out hard rock/cabaret/art rock/prog songs about comic book heroes - showing a sense of humor pretty rare in the somber 70's. Also worth mentioning is that they actually predated AC/DC... and were huge in AC/DC's native Australia... all I'm saying is that I kind of get the impression AC/DC started out as an Alex Harvey cover band, if you know what I mean. (Side note: Nick Cave and Foetus have both also done covers of Harvey songs - SAHB weren't just some obscure 70's group I'm raving about, they were *cool dudes*!)