We spent a madcap weekend in Santa Barbara after first doing a training event at the Pala Resort and Casino in northern San Diego County. I drove down early Thursday to set up for the training and play hostess at a dinner that evening. Chuck, meanwhile, went to LAX early Thursday evening to pick up his sister and brother-in-law who were flying in or a visit from their home in Colorado. We all hooked up late Thursday in Pala. They spent Friday touring Temecula while Chuck and I lab assisted and provided tech support for the Friday training. Late Friday we packed up our computer lab, rejoined Dina & Kenny and hit the road for Santa Barbara, arriving at our hotel about 10:30pm. Phew!

We were up bright and early Saturday for the annual Santa Barbara Running 10-Miler. We’ve been doing this race for several years, and several of our friends usually come up and join us. This year was no different, with Dave & Sylvia, Bev (aka “Spankie”), and Michael running this year. Chuck and I and his sister Dina also ran, with Kenny & Barbara sitting this year’s race out. Chuck and I had managed between the two of us to completely forget to register (we were so busy planning all the other stuff, this slipped our minds), so were planning on biting the bullet and doing late registration. However, Dina & Kenny’s neighbors, who had planned on running, couldn’t come, so Chuck and I ran as them (I was Beth and he was Dennis – well, actually Chuck was Kenny as Kenny had injured his Achilles tendon and couldn’t run either so Chuck took his number so he’d have a finish time. So Dennis was the only one who didn’t run either for real or for fake). Michael got first place in his age division (14 and under), Dave got third in his division, and Bev got second in hers. My alter ego Beth and I came in at 1:48, and Chuck/Ken came in at 1:53. Chuck was running with his sister, so when they crossed the finish, the announcer said, “And now we have Ken & Dina Robke! The couple that runs together stays together!” The weather was perfect, overcast and cool with little wind and no rain or blazing sun. There was a guy photographing his wife at every mile (he was riding his bike), and she was right behind us (me, Chuck, Dina, and Sylvia) for much of the race, so he ended up taking a bunch of pics of us, too. (For a while we thought possibly the race organizers had hired Clones-R-Us to photograph the race as we kept seeing the same guy over and over. It took us a while to clue in to what was going on. Duh!)

After the race, Barbara and Michael took off for Lotus Land, while the rest of us headed off to visit the local wineries. There are three wineries in a two-block radius of downtown Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara Winery, Giesssinger, and Cellar 205), so we hit those post-race, so we wouldn’t have to drive anywhere. We all went out to dinner at the Brown Pelican, a great place, then most everybody took off for home, leaving Dina & Kenny, and Chuck & me to spend Sunday hitting some of the Santa Ynez wineries. This trip we visited Buttonwood, Zaca Mesa, Foxen, had lunch at Los Olivos Cafe, then went to Babcock and just missed Melville (they were closing as we drove up, *sigh*, it’s a beautiful location).

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend. We took a bunch of pictures, which I have weeded down a LOT, so be grateful.