*pictures above are from their website
El Capitan Canyon resort is about 20 miles north of Santa Barbara right by the coastline. The entire place is huge - about 300 plus acres. After checking in, you will have to drive your car into the campground to go to your cabin to settle in. Then, you have to park your car at the lot (nearest to your cabin) since you're not supposed to have cars at the campground/cabin site. There are 108 Cedar Cabins (like the one we stayed) and 26 Safari Tents (Safari tents look very cute as well - pic right. No private shower or bath though). It took us about a good 30-40min to walk/hike around the entire place.

Before we drove up to El Capitan Canyon, we spent our day in Santa Barbara.
I've never been to Santa Barbara before, so it was really neat to see what's around.

First thing we did was to walk on the pier. We didn't know that we could drive up the pier... so we parked on the street and walked up. One interesting thing about Santa Barbara pier is that there is no railings or fence at the edge of the pier... So, you could just jump into the water if you want.

There was this cool pelican on the pier looking very proud modeling and did some modeling for our camera. And I also took a picture of a broken foot Seagull. Poor baby...

By the time we were done walking on the pier and got to downtown Santa Barbara, we were starving. We wanted food, but we wanted good food. So, we decided to ask one of the local people at a store... And he recommended us to go to "Los Arroyos" if we liked Mexican food.

14 W Figueroa St
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

This place is not set up like a true sit down restaurant. You order, then grab your own table like fast food. The food here was so fresh and tasted super clean. I don't remember exactly what Paul ordered. It was some kind of a specialty taco plate with chicken marinated with pineapple. The corn tortilla looked and tasted very much homemade. I ordered a vegetable fajitas burrito with guacamole and sour cream. They were very tasty. Nothing was greasy. Very fresh, clean, and inexpensive!

My favorite part of this place was the large variety of different freshly made salsas. There were a few more different kinds than what's shown on the picture, but our favorite was the cabbage salsa with red radish. It was like eating salad. If I could get this many fresh vegetables with Mexican food, I would eat it more often.

After our nice lunch, we walked around downtown and did some shopping and then decided to head to our cabin at El Capitan!

So, our lovely cabin came with a small kitchen, microwave, gas fireplace, Jacuzzi tub, outdoor fire pit, and wireless access. It is a very lovely sweet place... so quiet, peaceful, and perfect for relaxing. Since Judy had given us a ton of useful information on El Capitan, everything worked out perfectly :) Thanks Judy!! Our cabin was located in a good location at the very end of the camp ground with more privacy. And we were well prepared to do the BBQ at out private outdoor fire pit!

After taking a nice walk while the sun was still out, we fired up our pit for BBQ.
It was so awesome... we stayed outside until the fire extinguished and enjoyed watching the fire and the stars.

Perfect mini vacation...
When I just went to their website, I noticed they are doing 40% off on all accommodations in January! What a deal :O