The American Riviera

From a shabby Amtrak Surfliner platform near the Burbank Airport, the early morning anticipation of a train ride to the central coast coupled with anxiety. The trip was the far-off results of a lot of loose talk regarding me moving north up the coast at the end of the year. My mother traveled across the country to accompany me on the day trip that had no specific theme or point of order. Long before the train pulled in to the station, I resigned myself to the circumstance that I was to become a tourist in my own state. I was to travel an hour and forty-five minutes by train with a backpack to join hordes of Europeans in a coastal getaway to Santa Barbara, to contemplate personal and physical reinvention among the palms and sands of the American Riviera. The lure of the Pacific pulled the train west away from the San Fernando Valley through stretches of horse ranches and desolate rocky hill terrain. The train eased into the coastline in Ventura, among harsh rocky shores around Pierpont Bay, drifting alongside beachfront running trails off the beaten path of encampments of recreational vehicles. Merging smoothly alongside one of the most famous coastal-view highways in the world, the high surf of the morning was inspiring the hopes of surfers staking claims along the sand. My train ticket awarded me an unassigned seat with a view of over twenty miles of coastal beauty and personal conversations regarding the directions and decisions facing me. I will always endorse a train ride to anywhere for a day when it is time to finally approach all the major decisions that will have the most bearing in your next chapter.

We arrived conveniently on the beach end of State Street, blocks away from Sterns Wharf. The sea air, the gentle sunshine and the cooling breeze greet you immediately and instinctively you gravitate towards the beach, regardless of what hubbub is occurring in any other direction. With my mother in tow, and with latte in hand, my unconscious wander towards the sailboats led to the Dolphin Fountain at the entrance of the wharf, at the lively intersection of State Street and Cabrillo Boulevard. Stearns Wharf, State Street, Historic La Arcada, Cabrillo Boulevard into Shoreline Drive, Point Conception Lighthouse, Santa Barbara Harbor, the Maritime Museum, the Historic Courthouse, the Historical Museum, the Botanic Garden, the Museum of Art, the Old Mission, the Bird Refuge, the vineyards and wineries and the beautiful beaches and marinas are always the conventional ways to tour Santa Barbara. The only real plan was to explore and discover Santa Barbara by accident. I was pleased with the chance instances I came upon popular points of interest when I did, and not to be doing it alone. Really, I was there in a general appreciation of my own back yard and on a clueless search for a particular vibe, an answer to a question I was not sure how to ask.

I had learned that I was thirteen days early for a festival I had never heard of. Epicure.SB was the upcoming thirty-one day festival running all throughout the month of October. It is a celebration of the area’s best cuisine, libations and cultural events with an estimated one-hundred various events. A city that embraces a month-long festival is the perfect residence for the true urbanite, and the premier destination for those who need a sudden and simplistic escape. I was not going to discover the authenticity of Epicure.SB this time around, but the thoughts of festivals and innovative dining experiences were enough to allow me to capture that romanticized feeling I had hoped I would find there. It was only an eight-hour day in Santa Barbara on an ordinary Thursday, but as I walked the wharf on that not-too-particular weekday in September, I was achieving a hopeful calm. A serenity of sorts splashed against the fears and walls in my mind to the rhythm of the tide washing against the poles, planks and barnacles of the pier below my feet. Escape in simplicity came easily to me. The sailboats and kayaks dancing in the glimmering water gave way to the notion that not all my idealizing was entirely inconceivable.

The smiling faces, the amorous handholding, the jovial posing for cameras and the knickknack shopping of the wharf pushed outwards back towards the retail of State Street and the courtyards of La Arcada through the conveyance of an economical and convenient trolley, accessible -- though not necessary -- at the entrance of Stearns Wharf. After a short distance, we randomly jumped ship around State Street and Figueroa, in what is essentially the heart of downtown, near the Museum of Art and the Historic Courthouse with a 360-degree city view from the clock tower. We would be sticking primarily with downtown and the waterfront; there was no sense in turning a slow-paced, contemplative day at the beach into a frantic rush to see the brochure sites all in an effort to post cookie-cutter photos on Facebook. We perused the glamorous shops and eateries of State Street and the magnificent live fish and turtle fountain of the courtyards. An area saturated with tourism, there was no feeling of urgency or any hectic vibrations, only attempts and successes of people attaining an excitingly romantic and alluring way of life in a famous place where most of the people encountered will reluctantly be saying goodbye.

With the sun preparing to move beyond the Pacific, we followed its lingering light back to the shores as the city adapted to the growing twilight with its own twinkling skyline. We recounted the day on a seaside restaurant patio with swordfish and crab cakes, taking inventory of the pink-peach-champagne-colored sunset and the nose-diving pelicans making last efforts for a meal before nightfall. We arrived at the train station in time to hear the news that we would be departing earlier than scheduled. Boarded and settled in the upper deck of the train, the brightly lit lights of the center aisle and the night sky made mirrors of the train windows, cementing the ideals of reflection and not looking backwards. I had found calm and focus, obscurity and dignity, aspiration and naivety, closeness and solitude all in one furlough to the American Riviera, whose flamboyant and inspiring shores I am sure to return.