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This year we decided to try the Santa Barbara Wine Country. Well known and made even more famous by the 2004 movie "Sideways", the area is known for terrific wines; sounds like the place to be.
The participants were Newsom and Beverly Baker (Louisville, TN), Bill and Leah Barr (Atlanta), Chaz and Gael (Atlanta) and Fred and Fran Gunter (Charleston). Traditionally, we've tacked the tour onto the American Association of Orthodontists (AAO) annual meeting. This year the meeting was in Denver CO (sorta on the way to CA) but, because of scheduling conflicts, the only one actually going to the AAO turned out to be Chaz; everyone else flew out to CA just for the HOB Wine Tour. And, instead of following the AAO meeting, this year the HOB Wine Tour preceded it.
Since neither Gael nor I were very familiar with the Santa Barbara area, the research included wineries, restaurants, hotels and various routing options.
We decided to fly into LAX, rent our usual pair of minivans and drive north, past Santa Barbara to Lompoc CA. Our hotel for the tour was the Embassy Suites in Lompoc. The wineries and vineyards are laid out in NW-SE string (more or less) between Lompoc and Santa Barbara.
You may click on the map to see it larger
It's 152 miles from LAX to Lompoc -- but we only had to do that twice. The rest of the time we were between Lompoc and Santa Barbara.
Here's the gang from 2008:
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