Visitors

Courtney and Erin (on the way back from one of their many adventures) stopped by Santa Barbara to visit me. Due to a few slight navigational/directional errors, only two hours after arriving in Santa Barbara, the intrepid duo arrived right outside of my apartment. Sadly, they missed an impromptu beginning clarinet concert (Ode to Joy, Jingle Bells) by only ten minutes.

 I hopped into the front seat, as the back seat was packed with souvenirs from their sojourn. I neglected to tell them that what looks like a road directly in front of my apartment building is actually a bike path. So we drove along the bike path for awhile. Luckily, it was about 12:45 am at this point so no one really cared. 

We drove into the heart of Isla Vista, the student town bordering the campus, looking for parking. At one point, we drove past some cops and began to worry about the fact that there were three of us crammed in the front seat of Courtney's car. However, this was the weekend, so the police officers seemed more concerned with the very drunk, very obviously underage frat party attendees, than our lack of seat belts. 

We secured a parking spot, and headed back to my apartment. Courtney and Erin's large backpacks, blankets, and pillows they were carrying attracted attention. Some drunk passerby yelled, "Camp out!" But we couldn't tell if he was inviting us to his camp out or if he wanted to attend ours. We asked some of the obviously underage partiers where a good bar is located and the response was, "I wish I was 21." We laughed to ourselves and continued to head back to my apartment.

Or so I thought. Most of my time in Santa Barbara so far has been spent at Math Camp or other various forms of orientation, so I haven't exactly figured out the lay of the land. Eventually, we figured out that we were lost on a part of campus I did not recognize. (Just so I don't sound like too much of an idiot, UCSB's campus is HUGE.) On the plus side, our nighttime wandering was full of nature. We saw a skunk and a raccoon, and the raccoon didn't look nearly as rabid as the Bellingham raccoons.

We eventually found a campus map, and, as Erin refused to kiss the skunk, even for $20, resumed our journey to my apartment. By the time we made it back, it was after one o'clock, and we decided to save the rest of our adventuring for the next day.

Stay tuned for the rest of our adventure...