Some times a hidden gem is found, other times …
On Sunday, the Santa Barbara Zoo held its annual Snow Leopard festival by bringing in snow and sleds for the kids. We decided to have a family adventure and experience the snow. We didn’t tell the kids what we were doing until we pulled into the zoo parking lot. They were very excited, and we were shocked to see the line to get into the zoo snaking through the parking lot and onto the public sidewalk.
We dropped the kids to wait in line, I ran to the front to buy sledding bracelets and Toby parked the van. We all came together to walk into the zoo once the line started moving. Max, Lucy and I ran to the top of the hill at the zoo, ready for the snow.
We saw a tiny patch of shaved ice that held enough of a slope for a 2 second ride in a plastic toboggan. There were enormous amounts of people trying to throw ice-balls at one another. There were so many people standing on the snow that volunteers had to use lawn rakes to ‘fluff’ up the ice so that it could be scooped up by the 3 year olds.
After his first run, Max decided he would rather play on his Nintendo DS. Lucy found a neighbor girl to play with, but only lasted a few minutes herself. Toby was mad because the concession stand closest to the ice patch would not open for another hour and when it did open, it did not serve hot coco. I was amazed at the number of people who were waiting in lines scores deep for the 2 second ride.
So we decided that the morning could be rescue with a trip to Toby’s favorite bakery to get hot coco and éclairs. We arrived at ‘Xanadu –French Bakery’ in Montecito to find the building was surrounded with caution tape and posted danger signs on the plywood over the doors.
We ended up having Vons donuts. 🙁