Santa Barbara, Naturally

My son, Neil, is a wide-eyed 12-year-old with a sponge-like memory and a fascination with wildlife. So one weekend in July, we set out for Santa Barbara, hoping to blend adventures in nature with the finer points of city life.

Granted, the trip was more urban than camping among grizzlies in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, and one might argue that it’s difficult to find a wild side amid chic restaurants, yachts in the marina and swank ocean-view villas.

Near the city center, however, are several places--a fine zoo, a bird refuge and a hands-on marine life center--where Neil, my wife, Carol, and I could connect with the environment.

Our home base for this excursion was the Harbor House Inn, a quaint but modest bed-and-breakfast on Bath Street one block from the beach. We were familiar with Santa Barbara from past visits, but Harbor House was new to us. It turned out to be one of the best values in town. We paid $148 plus tax per night; in the off-season, when weather is still terrific and crowds have gone, weekend rates are around $100.

Our room had antiques and frills, much to Neil’s chagrin, and a small kitchen, which turned out to be irrelevant in this restaurant mecca. We dumped our luggage and dashed to State Street for dinner at one of our favorite Italian restaurants, Pascucci.

The swordfish with mango sauce, the pizza and the Mediterranean-style salads didn’t disappoint, especially when the tab for three came to only $47.92, including wine, dessert and tip. Satiated, we returned to Harbor House to rest for the wild side of our journey the next morning.

Saturday started at the East Beach Grill, where we stopped for pancakes and people-watching. The restaurant is a short walk from the Santa Barbara Zoological Gardens, a midsize zoo with more than 700 critters in seven regional habitats.

Of special note is an impressive array of endangered species. The zoo is a genetic library where representatives from 40 species are maintained to ensure their survival even if their wild cousins become extinct. The international program, called the Species Survival Plan, allows for captive breeding of the animals too. Among these imperiled animals are lowland gorillas, golden lion tamarins and white-handed gibbons. My favorite was the spectacular Amur leopard, of which only 50 remain in the wild, but Carol fell for the pair of Channel Island foxes, charismatic canines no bigger than a cat.

Neil, a Discovery Channel addict who memorized wildlife encyclopedias as a toddler, provided cage-by-cage narration: “Dad, did you know Komodo dragons grow over 6 feet long and can take down a human? ... Dad, do you know how fast a capybara [a 4-foot rodent] can run? No way a leopard can catch it.... Dad, I think the Prevosts squirrels are mating!”

One of the afternoon highlights was “Theater Gone Wild,” an interactive performance in which actors dressed like spiders, beavers and a praying mantis have great fun teaching kids about the interconnectivity of nature and how easily humans can upset things.

A short walk away, we peered through telescopes into the Andree Clark Bird Refuge, a wetland wedged between rail lines and U.S. 101 and the Pacific. It had been a dump and a prospective site for a yacht club, but city leaders had the foresight in 1929 to set it aside as a refuge. Today it attracts kestrels and warblers, herons and pintails as well as bird-watchers.

By afternoon, most of the zoo animals were resting, so we departed for the Hamburger Habit on Milpas Street, a great place for lunch, and not just burgers: I like the grilled ahi sandwich, and the chicken salads are smashing.

Tired and mindful that we were, after all, on vacation, we returned to Harbor House and changed into swimsuits for the beach. Neil and I tossed a football while Carol read. A seal frolicked in the harbor, in-line skaters glided past the boardwalk and the Santa Ynez Mountains framed a gloriously clear cityscape.

Dinnertime found us at Paradise Cafe, which was disappointing. The wait was long, the California cuisine was a yawn and the prices exceeded those of better establishments on State Street.

Sunday morning, though, we were treated to a delicious buffet at Harbor House, with homemade banana bread, eggs and pastries. Not fancy, but tasty and filling.

The hotel provides bicycles for guests, so we pedaled to the Sea Center at nearby Stearns Wharf, which was heavily damaged in a fire in 1998 but is open again.

The Sea Center is small and navigable, and the exhibits are dedicated to sea life of the Channel Islands and the local coastline. A full-size model of a gray whale hangs from the ceiling, and beneath it is a disgusting-looking lobster exoskeleton, which Neil found fascinating. Inside one tank we spotted nurse sharks, spiny crabs and a strange fish with eyelashes.

We learned that beneath the waves, animals do lots of frisky things to propagate their species. Gazing into a tank awash in a soup of plankton, sperm and pulsing little life forms, Neil exclaimed: “It’s like you don’t want to open your mouth in the water or all these baby things will swim in and grow in your stomach.” Whoa! We were in too deep, so we went outside to the touch tank to torment sea stars and crabs doomed to a lifetime of being fondled by visitors. Don’t know why, but I love poking at starfish and feeling hermit crabs skitter over my palm.

Hungry for lunch, we left the wharf in search of La Super-Rica. One look at this storefront on the corner of Milpas and Alphonse streets, and the temptation is to keep driving. But inside, wow! The corn tortillas are homemade, the portions are generous and the prices--$20 for the three of us. The pork, steak and chicken were richly marinated, the peppers were fresh and the salsa rocked.

We walked off those calories at the nearby Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, which sits behind the mission and shares its charm and Spanish architecture.

The exhibit halls were stuffed with butterflies: striped ones, colored ones, drab ones, fat ones, butterflies as big as small birds. Butterflies are one of the few insects that don’t bite or sting, so to protect themselves they have become masters of camouflage. Some, such as the Io moth, have wings with cat eyes to ward off predators. The designs on the wings are made of tiny scales, arranged in mosaic.

At the end of the exhibit (“Butterflies Alive!” closes today), we immersed ourselves in hundreds of butterflies inside the Butterfly Pavilion. All around us floated swallowtails and red admirals, hackberry emperors and zebra longwings. We would have had to travel hundreds of miles to see so much nature on display, yet it was all there for the taking, on just one weekend in Santa Barbara.

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Budget for Three

Harbor House Inn, two nights--$331.52

Dinner, Pascucci--47.92

Breakfast, East Beach Grill--26.07

Admission, zoo--22.00

Train ride, zoo--4.00

Lunch, Hamburger Habit--18.39

Dinner, Paradise Cafe--41.70

Admission, Sea Center--18.00

Lunch, La Super-Rica--20.16

Admission, Museum of Natural History--10.00

Gas, parking--12.00

FINAL TAB--$551.76

* Harbor House Inn, 104 Bath St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101; telephone (888) 474-6789 or (805) 962-9745, Internet https://www.harborhouseinn.com.