Dan McCaslin: Escape to Goleta — ‘Travel’ to Suburbia | Outdoor

Ever since my companion and I briefly moved from Santa Barbara’s city Westside again to spacious Goleta in early September, I’ve felt like an erratic traveler, a kind of topographic Methuselah.

We lived in a cramped condominium on South Patterson Avenue in 1982 whereas she labored at UCSB’s Marine Science Institute and I taught at an area prep faculty. Those had been candy days earlier than youngsters and having fun with the “Good Land” — jogging maniacally within the foothills with guru Franko and coach Rolf Scheel and appreciating household barbecues at Tucker’s Grove Park.

In order to make ends meet, a good friend and I additionally based Palm Landscape and Maintenance. We savored the out of doors labor throughout Goleta’s candy and sultry summers. Those had been halcyon days earlier than digital dominance and the 21^st century crazed political machinations. We backpacked into the San Rafael Wilderness, and I wrote a protracted scholarly article about Greek historical past (4.1.1.).

In each Goleta and Santa Barbara, affairs had been way more clear again then: nobody whining about immigration, white hyper-nationalism, or DEI and woke excesses. Republican Bob Lagomarsino was a well-liked politician and a “nice guy.” Perhaps our Goleta interval 4 many years in the past represented these vaunted days of an easier America, a “golden age” that each proper and left hark again to right this moment. Ahh, if it had been so easy!

My companion’s bodily calamity in September — two badly fractured ankles — obliged us to make this months-long change to our previous Goleta stomping grounds 43 years after we’d moved away to Santa Barbara’s tightly packed Westside.

This journey has morphed right into a journey odyssey spanning time and area regardless of the mere 11 miles separating our 950-square-foot house from Goleta’s golden suburban shores.

In reality, we’ve additionally skilled a trifecta of dislocations due to a hearth insurance coverage requirement to vary the 95-year-old knob-and-tube electrical system. When renovations started, we at first lived in a 260-square-foot Westside studio condominium. After the dislocated ankles, we shifted to the Marriott Residence Inn on Hollister Avenue in Goleta.

All of that’s to make clear why two 77-year-olds bearing a burdensome mortgage are participating in three bodily strikes between September and December. I’m asking readers to step again and contemplate how these unexpected zig-zags defy that “pattern-thinking” most human minds require to make a little bit of sense of the truth dealing with them.

At first, I couldn’t work out precisely the place to buy or discover first rate takeout meals, simply as our nation can’t work out what to do about Ukraine or Gaza, and even the rowdy U.S. followers’ ugly habits on the Ryder Cup (which we misplaced 15-13). Judy questioned what occurred to Two Guys, relationship each of us horribly.

I require entry to books and rapidly managed to find the (short-term) Goleta Library simply a few blocks away on the identical Hollister Avenue the place our short-term digs are. Housed in a part of this picturesque construction at Hollister Avenue and Los Carneros Way, these tomes present all of the studying I want.

The observations that strike us as totally different in right this moment’s Goleta embrace the cool industrial buildings alongside Hollister Avenue reverse the “new” airport tower (rebuilt in 1998). This poses the query: Why is the Santa Barbara Airport out right here within the metropolis of Goleta?

Goleta historian Tom Modugno explains how this “shoestring annexation” occurred right here — such a shady maneuver could be unlawful right this moment, however the airport stays inside Santa Barbara metropolis limits.

Today’s Goleta options a number of stark alterations from the quaint unincorporated sleepy city of 33,000 from 1980 to 1982, after we lived there. What occurred to the long-lasting Bray’s 101 Restaurant the place I first had a meal with my mom in 1966 whereas trying out UCSB? I study that it closed in 1987, however that Benny Bray had been compelled to maneuver it from a Santa Barbara location earlier in 1960. Obviously, there are a lot of adjustments that occurred earlier than the adjustments my companion and I’ve seen.

The “new” Fairview Shopping Center was accomplished in 1964 and inside 20 years “… the area between the highway [at Fairview] and the foothills was pretty much all developed,” according to Modugno.

Goleta integrated in 2002, so right this moment there’s a metropolis of Goleta, and it apparently succumbed to state planners, which has resulted within the large constructing increase we observe in 21^st century Goleta. I seen the huge enlargement of the unique Fairview Shopping Center alongside Calle Real with Trader Joe’s and lots of different outlets extending towards Patterson Avenue (the “new” hearth station there’s important, although).

Why does Old Town Goleta nonetheless really feel quaint and slower regardless of the ridiculous “new” angled/backout parking areas?

Yet Goleta retains among the relaxed really feel that Santa Barbara has misplaced. The historic Timbers Roadhouse restaurant stays, reminding me that I as soon as toiled there as a gardener at minimal wage. Today, Goleta residents benefit from the relaxed environment and neighborliness of the Los Carneros Dam dinner held there each August. The Goleta Lemon Festival continues sturdy as do a number of different neighborhood gatherings.

Creation of the magnificent open area at Ellwood Bluffs — formally Santa Barbara Shores Park — has been an unlimited accomplishment.

Goleta’s then-mayor, Jean Blois, known as this preservation of Ellwood Mesa’s 118 acres, with the essential eucalyptus grove defending the monarch butterflies, “one of the city’s most significant accomplishments.” Click here for the tangled historical past of this profitable preservation effort.

As an inveterate hiker exiled to late 2025 Goleta, I’ve discovered climbing round Ellwood a significant approach to train, observe wildlife and roam above the huge Pacific Ocean.

Goleta now boasts 25-acre Girsh Park close to the Camino Real Marketplace growth, and Tucker’s Grove and Stow Grove parks stay glowing gems for native residents.

As a nation, we’re experiencing astounding adjustments in how the world observes us; as a person, I’m witnessing a much-altered but nonetheless engaging Goleta 43 years after transferring away “to town.” The feeling is certainly one of a spatial Rip Van Winkle’s return to “the Good Land” regardless of many alterations, a lot enlargement, the standard land-use controversies, and gobs of pleasant folks making their means within the complicated USA of 2025.

Like the hiker and backpacker I’ve been because the early Seventies, my mantra stays “pack small, think big, and embrace the changes forced upon you by life and digital imperialism.” My companion and I recall the wonders of Nineteen Eighties Goleta by evaluating them to right this moment’s bustling city, and we discover it principally optimistic.

The topographic zig-zags compelled upon us do problem the “pattern-thinking” most human minds have to make sense of the kaleidoscopic realities confronting them. Here in Goleta, I can’t slip over to DJ’s hamburger stand anymore or have dinner on the Blue Ox; nevertheless, the seaside nonetheless beckons, and Goleta people stay resilient and fairly pleasant.

4.1.1.

“Polybius, Phylarchus and the Mantineian Tragedy” in “Archaiognosia” (University of Athens), 1986.