Oxnard to Santa Barbara

I was glad to be getting away from Oxnard in the morning, grabbing a quick coffee from a Diner next door and then trying to get some call price information from a T-Mobile shop across the road (the usual poor Customer Service as Frys Electronics). I had taken the use of the Internet the night before to book a night ahead for tonight in a Motel6 which is a national chain and a lot cheaper than the Ripoff Regal (almost ½ the price) but would be at least a better standard. I drove on, out of Oxnard back onto the Freeway and headed to Santa Barbara. I pulled into the Tourist Info office and got a map of things to do, The main thing here is to see the County Court Building, which, not only being the place where Michael Jackson's trial was held is a beautiful cool building. The building is still a working court but you can wander the corridors and look in on the Mural Room which is painted on all four walls with the ornate murals of the history of California. There is also a staircase which takes you up to the tower where you can look over the whole of Santa Barbara and it too is decorated with tile mosaics in a Spanish/Moorish style in fact many of tiles actually came from Tunisia. I wandered down the main street and found a full size Borders Bookshop and managed to get a copy of the Lonely Planet, the Frommer's turned out to be bad buy (unless you are travelling on a budget of about $200 a day – and I'm not!
Walking back up the Main street I found a small coffee shop and went in for an Iced Latte to cool of; it was in the high 70's today and to browse the net for the next couple of night accommodation, that sorted I headed back down the Freeway to Carpinteria to the Motel6 for the night. The Motel had recently been refurbished and had rally good rooms complete with huge flat screen TV's which I could connect my media player and excellent showers. Next door was a shopping precinct so I nipped round there to the supermarket to get some tea to take back to the room.