We're at the beach at the Carpinteria State Beach Park and
learning to deal with California's camping/RV Park reservation system. Combine a
huge population with a limited resource (the beach) and a demand for reasonable
priced camping, and you get a rationing system that masquerades as a reservation
system, that gets down to the camping plot level. We are used to just showing up
and having a place for our RV, but this is not possible here. The demand at the
artificially low prices is too great.


The beach wasn't so much in demand north at Pismo Beach, a bit further away from
the main population centers, but I was afraid to come to Santa Barbara because
it looked like things were a lot tighter. We are working it out, and taking on
non powered site for next week, heading back to Buellton for the weekend. I'll
see if I can rent a quiet generator and operate on battery power.


John Graynald and Lee Kahn got 5000'+ in the mountains on the north side of
Santa Barbara on Wednesday (the coast runs east/west here). This place reminds
me a a little of Salt Lake with the mountains right out of town. The winds are
out of the north (over the back), so we'll see how this works with the thermals
coming up the south side, the side facing the sun. The winds are supposed to
calm down on Thursday. There were 60 mph gusts nearby on Wednesday.


They've recently opened up the beach for regular landings, and you can see where
to land here:
http://sbsa.info/East Beach/east_beach_guidelines.html and the Santa Barbara
hang gliding club's web site is here: www.sbsa.info. If you fly here, be sure to hook up with a guide. I've
contacted the local club president, Anne-Odile (Skippy), Richard Saffold, and
John Graynald, the USHPA regional director. John and I will go flying on
Thursday, keeping him from his chores.