Meg's Epic Week Part 6: It's Monday. Must Be Santa Barbara.

Right, so it's Saturday evening and I'm finally getting around to blogging all of my stories and pictures from this week. I had this notion that I would have bits of time in the week to sit down and blog, but whenever I did find a few minutes, I was more concerned with sleeping, or getting stuff done that needed to be done. Finally, I figured I'd just wait to blog the bulk of this week's stories, and just leave the short entries below so that everyone would know that 1) I'm alive, and 2) why yes, I am enjoying myself immensly.

Monday morning found me awake at 6:00, eating breakfast, working out, and getting ready for my Santa Barbara Adventure with Meghan, a friend I've known since at least 7th grade. Our dads rode the commuter bus together for years and Meghan and I probably have all kinds of dirt on each other. We lost touch after high school, but thanks to Facebook, we've reconnected and had some really fun adventures together in the last few years. I'm happy we did; she's a good friend and the kind of person you want on your side.

Meghan arrived a bit before noon, and we set off in Rosie Pro for Santa Barbara. Here's the thing about Santa Barbara--logically, I knew it was located in Southern California, and most of the time, Southern California seems like another planet to me. It's just not somewhere I really go very often, only venturing as far as Monterey (which I think of as Northern California, but it's really right on the border). Most of my life has been spent in the northern half of this state. That said, in the lead-up to this Epic Week, I kept thinking that it would be just a little jaunt to Santa Barbara, even long after looking up the directions on Google Maps and finding that it's a 350-mile drive.

Hey, good music is worth it.


View Larger Map

Yes, we did cover a lot of California.

We had to stop a couple times along the way to fill up the gas tank and get something to eat. Our first stop was at Santa Nella, so we could pop into the gift shop at Andersen's Pea Soup.

Meghan is down with the whole Swimmy thing and actually loves that
I embrace my inner nerd.

At Pea Soup

A stop for gas later in the day.

We were a little bit later arriving at the gig than we would have liked, and to our dismay, the only parking at the Santa Barbara Bowl is at the local high school. We found a residential street nearby where we could park for free and left Rosie Pro there (quite safely).

At the venue, we had to wait in line at Will Call, then wait again at the bag search, then wait yet again to get a General Admission wrist band, etc. By the time we got in, the opening act, The Tallest Man On Earth (real name: Kristian Matsson), a Swedish folk musician with a lovely sound, had already started.

He's not actually the tallest man on earth.

But he's kinda cute.

The Santa Barbara Bowl. We were in the General Admission
(standing only) area right in front of the stage.

During Matsson's set, Marcus Mumford was giving an interview off
to the side of the stage.

Pretty girls!

Cali Swimmy, getting excited for the show.

Finally, the guys came on stage:


We weren't as close to the stage as we would have liked to be, and we had a ton of tall people in front of us (Meghan is tall, I, obviously, am not) and some cigar-smoking, loud-chatting frat boy-types next to us. At first I was overwhelmed and disgruntled by these things, but a few minutes into Mumford and Sons' set, I just thought, "Hey, relax, Coop. You're listening to Mumford and Sons. They're right there. Just enjoy." I also got a lot of pleasure from jostling the frat boys every time I started dancing and jumping around to the music. They tried to invade my space and push me out of my spot!

Ben Lovett (Benji) and Marcus Mumford

L-R: Benji, Marcus, Winnie, Teddy

Benji

Teddy

The man just can't stand still.

I actually love this shot, somehow.

It's hard to get good shots from that far away with my camera.

Smiley Ben is smiley.

I took a few videos, including this cover of "Wagon Wheel" from the encore (the sound quality isn't great, but you get the idea):



 The gig was great--the guys had a wild weekend at Coachella but still had plenty of energy and they played all of my favorite songs. Meghan had never seen them live and was blown away by how incredibly energetic they are. We left the gig raving about how much fun it was, and stopped to have some pizza at a little place near the venue.

It was delicious--basil, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, feta cheese, and olives.

We drove by Mission Santa Barbara and got this picture.

We hadn't originally planned on staying overnight, which is silly, as it was late and 350 miles is a long way to go home in the middle of the night. We drove up the road a little ways to get a hotel room at Pea Soup in Buellton (same people who run the one in Santa Nella) and stayed the night there.

The next day would find us visiting four more California Missions, a darling Danish town, and San Luis Obispo--which I will leave for another post.