Painted Cave

P1010195
Originally uploaded by gus_maclaurin

This was near the end of a 4 hour debacle ride. Overall the ride was fantastic, but there was some miscommunication (not helped by AT&T phone issues). So close to 4,000 feet of vertical elevation gain later, I met up with a friend's uncle who showed me some of the interesting areas nearby, including a village called Painted Cave. All of the town's mailboxes are here. Must be a bear to figure out where someone lives though if you don't have the mailbox number next to the house...

The wild thing about the ride was hearing about the forest fires that ravaged the area (the hills are different shades of green because of that, and what we are doing to stop them may be making them worse, since there needs to be fires to clear out the light underbrush, and by stopping that it leads to bigger underbrush instead that cannot easily be put out...ah human intervention to the natural order ;)

Apparently Lance Armstrong trains in the mountains behind Santa Barbara. The bike shop i use has his picture!