Friday Nov 28th - With Full Bellies & Clean Clothes We Left Santa Barbara

Our parents would be proud. We really pulled off a spectacular Thanksgiving last night. We gathered together at dusk at a park near Chris E's house. He lives up on a hill (a really steep hill, ask Courtney, Meagan, and Laurie) that overlooks the beautiful city of Santa Barbara. A lot of work went into preparing our 30 guests, here's a partial list;

• Mashed Cauliflower - ingredients from the Farmers Market
• Squash Soup - Jenny
• Romaine Salad - Farmers Market
• Green Beans - from Farmers Market
• Homemade Salsa & blue corn chips - Jenny & Nicci
• Stuffing - donated bread from Trader Joes
• Squash - Farmers Market
• Cranberries - Dakota!
• Fruit Salad - donated from several farmers markets
• 2 different potato dishes - I know Dakota made one of them
• Rolls - homemade and donated from Farmers Market
• Chocolate Chip Bread - made by Julie
• And of course we had a Turkey - prepared by Brent
• Chris E and Laurie hand made all of the desserts - Pumpkin Pie & Pecan Pie
  

There may have been others food, but I got so sleepy I had to take a nap in the bus for awhile. After dining at dusk at the city overlook, we washed up the dishes and sat around singing and telling stories. The only thing that would have made it better was if our families were with us.

We leave Santa Barbara today, but could not do so without thanking our gracious hosts; Brent & Dakota (Buster & Lola), Chris E, and Danny's Granny. It takes a special kind of person to take in a group of bikers (who had been camping for the previous week) and let them take over your homes for 4 days. Thank you, thank you, thank you! we're blessed by your generosity. And to all of our friends who joined us for Thanksgiving - we could not have asked for a more special & unique celebration. We're blessed to have you in our little Catalina family. And please get let us know when you've got the "Transitioning from Catalina" manual finished.

Today we pull out our fresh and clean spandex and jump back in the saddle (don't call it a bike seat, for whatever reason when you're serious about biking it's more like you're riding a horse then just sitting) and head out the 30ish miles to Emma Wood just outside of Ventura.