The NatureTrack Day In the Country Almost 5K Run winds through the quaint downtown, charming neighborhoods, and quiet countryside of Los Olivos, California. As you run, in addition to the beautiful views, you'll enjoy knowing that your race registration is supporting NatureTrack Foundation, an organization dedicated to fostering a lifelong fascination with nature through outdoor field trips for school-aged children.

Led by fun-loving, knowledgeable docents, each NatureTrack field trip gives children the opportunity to explore, create, learn about, enjoy and sometimes visit for the first time, a natural treasure in "their backyard." NatureTrack enhances a child's education and brings to life the history, ecology, biology, beauty, importance, and wonders of our natural environment.

After the race, you can enjoy Los Olivos' most highly acclaimed festival of the year...the popular Day in the Country. The NatureTrack Almost 5K Run, (for serious, recreational, and furry runners), kicks-off this Los Olivos tradition that celebrates the magic of small-town, country living. With the NatureTrack Almost 5K Run; a parade; tractor show; over a hundred local and regional crafters, artists, and food purveyors; live music; wine tastings; and a beer garden, you'll find post-race fun for the whole family!

Special thanks to Platinum Performance, our race predecessors, for providing the nutrition bars and winner's gifts for the "first-annual NatureTrack Almost 5K Run."

We hope you'll join us. It's an event you won't want to miss!

Three of the most limitless creators and composers in the history of music, Béla Fleck (banjo), Zakir Hussain (tabla) and Edgar Meyer (double bass) have each put forth an unprecedented array of projects that touch every geographical and stylistic corner of the musical world. Coming together as a trio of musical masters and genre-benders, these longtime friends and innovators create a fusion that is uniquely their own. With astonishing virtuosity and 20 Grammy Awards between them, Fleck, Hussain and Meyer move with ease among the worlds of classical, bluegrass and North Indian music, crossing sonic borders in an alchemical evening of magic that must not be missed.

“Simply the best at what they do… they’re world-class masters of the banjo, the bass fiddle and the tabla conquered mere technical prowess long ago.” NPR

The Santa Barbara Elks Lodge will be taking part in the Santa Barbara County’s Veteran’s Stand Down and will provide over $2500 worth of clothing, along with gift cards, toiletries, and other supplies.

The Rona Barrett Foundation’s annual fall fundraiser will celebrate Woodstock's 50th anniversary of peace, love, and music.

Dela Guerra Plaza hosted by Housing Authority with Spencer the Gardener. Free.

Join Landscape Designer Natasha Elliott to enrich both your diet and your yard with native edible plants including Elderberry, White sage, Wild strawberry, and California bay.

SkyeDyes is a local start-up business run by Skye Ramseyer. These free events promote aspects of Community, Empathy, Education and Creativity. 25% of all of the proceeds we make goes directly to small local non-profits in the Central Coast Area of California and to help bring these events to you around the west coast. So bring a white t-shirt and join us at Shoreline Park on the 19th of October between the hours of 10 am - 5 pm.

• Saturday, October 19th, 11:00am – 1:00pm
• Learn about owls, scorpions, spiders and snakes!

Close-up encounters with living, owls, scorpions, bats, spiders, and snakes along with real skulls and bones!

UCSB University Carillonist Wesley Arai will present a special recital commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Storke Tower carillon’s dedication on Sunday, October 20, 2019 at 2 pm. The program will feature world premieres of pieces by composers Emma Lou Diemer (Professor Emerita, UCSB) and Aaron David Miller, which were commissioned for the event. The event will also include remarks by distinguished guest speakers. Listeners are encouraged to bring a blanket or lawn chair to sit on the grass outside the tower during the recital.

TITLE: BLACK HOLES AND THE INFORMATION PARADOXSPEAKER: Dr. Henry Maxfield, Physics Dept., UCSB
Dr. Maxfield will talked about the ideas that lead to the prediction of black holes and to the information paradox, the mysterious combining of general relativity and quantum mechanics to explain black holes. 

Parallel Stories looks at the power of memory and the family stories that are woven together in the "Homeric" epic and memoir of "In the Country of Women: A Memoir" in a reading and conversation with award-winning author Susan Straight. In this ode to what The New York Times called "the entire multiracial, transnational tribe she claims as her own,” Straight reminds us in powerful, fiercely lyrical language of the grit, hope, courage, resilience, hope, and sorrow inextricably connected to our stories—stories of women, stories of coming to, and leaving, and returning, and in the author’s case, stories written within blocks of where she was born and still lives in Riverside County. This book, addressed in large part to her daughters, is finally and most tellingly about love—transcendent, inconvenient, persistent, imperfect generations of love. Straight has published eight novels, including "Highwire Moon," finalist for the National Book Award in 2001, and "Between Heaven and Here." Her short stories have appeared in "Zoetrope," the "Ontario Review," the "Oxford American," the "Sun," "Black Clock," and many others. Her essays have appeared in "The New York Times," "Reader’s Digest," "Family Circle," "Salon," the "Los Angeles Times," "Harpers," the "Nation," and elsewhere.

Book signing to follow.

Parallel Stories looks at the power of memory and the family stories that are woven together in the "Homeric" epic and memoir of "In the Country of Women: A Memoir" in a reading and conversation with award-winning author Susan Straight. In this ode to what The New York Times called "the entire multiracial, transnational tribe she claims as her own,” Straight reminds us in powerful, fiercely lyrical language of the grit, hope, courage, resilience, hope, and sorrow inextricably connected to our stories—stories of women, stories of coming to, and leaving, and returning, and in the author’s case, stories written within blocks of where she was born and still lives in Riverside County. This book, addressed in large part to her daughters, is finally and most tellingly about love—transcendent, inconvenient, persistent, imperfect generations of love. Straight has published eight novels, including "Highwire Moon," finalist for the National Book Award in 2001, and "Between Heaven and Here." Her short stories have appeared in "Zoetrope," the "Ontario Review," the "Oxford American," the "Sun," "Black Clock," and many others. Her essays have appeared in "The New York Times," "Reader’s Digest," "Family Circle," "Salon," the "Los Angeles Times," "Harpers," the "Nation," and elsewhere.

Book signing to follow.