I haven’t been able to see the glow of the fire at night, for which I’m glad because that means it hasn’t gotten that far up the mountain on the other side. If you drive on the other side, though, you can see a pretty fearsome blaze in broad daylight.

If you want a quick look-see, paste the address below into your browser and take a look at the pictures that float up onto your screen.

http://www.sbestatehomes.com/

BTW, I have no affiliation with this realtor – in fact, I don’t even know him. I ran across his site once while looking for some property, and remembered that it had all these cool photos.

Santa Barbara is one of the few true Mediterranean climates in the country. The temperature is always mild – never too hot in the summer and never too cold in the winter. In the dead of winter it’s cool enough to have a fire at night yet warm enough to play golf without a sweater during the day. It’s not too dry – Santa Fe and Boulder are both brutally dry – yet not too humid. The humidity doesn’t feel like humidity in other places – the South, for example – because the weather is so temperate. Santa Barbara has its own little micro climate allowing it to grow both the palm trees and tropical plants that abound along with the oak forests that are all over the place. One golf course I play has palm trees and tropical greenery all over it; the other has large, ancient oak trees and looks completely different even though it’s only a couple of miles from the other.

SB has plenty of culture – although I’ve been disappointed in the SB Opera (Opera has to be really, really good for me to go see it), plenty of great wineries, it’s only 11/2 hours from LA, a few hours from San Fran, has the beach, the mountains, friendly people, great scenery, polo, wonderful restaurants…the list goes on and on.

Hope this gives you an idea why we spend time here.

I’m hoping it doesn’t make it over that mountain because I live right under it.

Cheers–