Santa Barbara Fiesta 2005

On Friday a few of my labmates and I went to the UCSB Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade.


Santa Barbara Fiesta Week Flag

Fiesta coincides with Santa Barbara's main tourist season. Here is one of the short video clips that I took during the parade: Fiesta 2005: fancy hoofwork [ in .avi format].


Fiesta Week: Friday -- Sombrero Hawker before parade

Fiesta seems kinda cheesy, but ah well, it was an excellent excuse to get out of the lab.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: Beginning

The horse parade lasted about 1.5 hours. It didn't seem like there were that many horses, despite the announcer's claim that the SB Fiesta Horse Parade is one of the largest horse parades in the nation.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: Palominos in formation

Horses did there business as they trudged along the hot pavement. There was this one time when a rider's horse just started urinating for almost a minute and the urine pooled until it trailed away toward the gutters. But there was a family perched on the curb right near the gutter, and so the rider grimaced apologetically toward the family. As soon as the horses moved on, the family quickly ran across the street to get a safer place to view the parade.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: Important Santa Barbara Flags: ?, Mexican, Spanish, United States flags

The history of Santa Barbara is entwined with that of the Chumash, Spaniards, Mexicans,and Americans.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: little kid on mule

Okay, so all these are mules, not donkeys. R seems to like the mules and donkeys better than horses.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: Boys & Girls Club of Santa Barbara Canon Float

There were a few floats, strongly peppered with the logos of local businesses. After the parade, for some reason I felt this subconscious urge to buy a gleaming new Ford truck.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: Prancing horse

It was really sunny out that day. My labmates and I were thankfully shaded by vegetation, but the people and animals in the parade were not. We saw a lot of foaming horses and sweaty riders.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: Rearing horse

Some of the riders and horses got frisky and attempted to strike some poses.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: Los Padres National Forest Pack Mules

The Santa Barbara firemen were forced to walk and run along the street for the duration of the parade. I felt really sorry for them. I guess this demonstrates the ones who participated are in great shape.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: End -- Firemen running around

Firemen also brought up the end of the parade as they occasionally sprayed long spurts of water into the air in the street. I'm glad my camera had been safely stowed away by then.


Fiesta 2005 Horse Parade: End -- Firemen running with hose

We then went for a Santa Barbara Courthouse tour, which were being offered every half hour.


Fiesta 2005: Santa Barbara Courthouse, Fiesta flag

During the tour, the docent reminded us about the story of Santa Barbara. So the SB Fiesta flags have to do with Saint Barbara, who was some Roman dude's daughter. He locked up his daughter in a 2-window tower so that when he left her alone, Christianity would not reach her.


Santa Barbara Courthouse: View from Tower -- Old jail

When he came back to his daughter, he asked her why she was having a third window installed. She went on about how she needed the 3 windows with regard to the Holy Trinity, etc., and her father cut her head off when he had learned of her conversion. Next a bolt of lightning touched the sword he used to behead his daughter and he was killed. Yar.


Fiesta 2005: Santa Barbara Courthouse Tour, Mural Room -- Piratey mural

There's a lot of Spanish/Andalucian/Mexican/Italian influence in the architecture and artwork of the old courthouse. Here's a better image, courtesy of R, of the piratey mural I tried to take a picture of.


Santa Barbara Courthouse: Sunken Gardens -- people staking out spots for Fiesta 2005 festivities

The docent pointed out that the SB Courthouse was the first building in California to have an underground garage. Not sure if I believe that.


Fiesta 2005: Santa Barbara Courthouse Tour: (Leather) Wall Hanging of Pirate (Privateer) Bouchard

The leather wall hanging of Bouchard brought up a story about Comandante de la Guerra and the privateer who almost but didn't quite invade Santa Barbara, but I'm too lazy to write it up.


Santa Barbara Courthouse: Another building