We spent the day mostly outdoors today, as it was another of those perfect after-a-rain days. We walked around the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, where the wildflower meadow was beginning to bloom. While orange is my least favorite color in most applications, I lovelovelove California poppies, which were in bloom among dozens of types of sage, in white and all shades of blue. The display will only improve, over the next month or two. We bought a membership, so we can come as often as we (I) like.

From there, we went to Nojoqui Falls, a bit below Solvang. Nojoqui Falls is about as dramatic as a kitchen tap in a dry year, but, this being a wet year, it's suitably spectacular, now. The drive on the back road between Nojoqui and Solvang was so beautiful! Today, the hills on the left of the road were every bit as green as the golf course on the right. In California, that's a rare occurrence. It has been, I don't remember, five or six years since we've had a wet year, in which everything is green and blooming.

Since the diet is still in force, I had to (with great regret) forgo an eclair in Solvang. Darn. The eclairs are what I like best about Solvang. I also managed to resist the yarns at Village Spin and Weave, but succumbed to a couple of books, one by EZ, one by Meg Swanson. I didn't even notice that I had gotten a mother-daughter pair until I was halfway home.

And I didn't knit a stitch all day, not one.