Mother's Day Hike

Hiked the Douglas Family Preserve in Santa Barbara. Met a couple along the way that provided the backstory on how it came to be. Twenty plus years ago this was a nursery and the owners decided to sell to a developer to build houses on the property. The Santa Barbara community wanted to keep it pristine, and asked if they could buy it instead. The owners said they would be happy to sell to the community but they had to match the price. For months Santa Barbara held fund raisers of every kind, but as the deadline approached they were still short. Then Michael Douglas (the actor) called and asked how the fund raiser was going. He grew up in this area and went to school at UC Santa Barbara. Michael was told they were still $600 thousand dollars short of what was needed. Michael said, "I will put up that money" - and that is how it came to be known as the Douglas Family Preserve.