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Published: August 25th 2008
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Buellton
Aren't we just the posh California campers? If you look closely at the table you will see a laptop, cell phone, remote for the XM radio, and a latte. Nothing like getting back to nature! As our narrator has informed you in the last blog, we set off from Manzanar, heading west, with no real destination in mind. As it was Saturday, 08/16/08, and we had no place to stay until Monday, 08/18/08, we headed out in search of a campsite on the beach. We drove down the 395, 14, and 405 to the coast and arrived near Malibu. We wanted to find a place in southern California, and kind of take it easy heading up to Solvang. Heading up the Pacific Coast Highway, we stopped at every single national and state park there was…all of them were full. Finally, in Buellton, a whole 2 miles away from Solvang, we found a spot in an RV park. So we decided to spend the weekend relaxing, writing blogs, and recuperating from Death Valley on Friday night. A note on RV park camping: this was our first experience with camping in an RV park. First off, I want to say that sleeping on grass is much softer and more comfortable than sleeping on a rockfield. Also, free and clean showers/bathrooms are always a plus. While we never used it, the fact that a pool and hot tub were
Buellton
This is where you camp if you have children to keep entertained, are retired, or simply cannot find any place else to sleep. available was also a luxury we obviously would not find at any National Park campground. There were no fire pits, but that was not a problem because we decided to skip cooking while here and frequented the Taco Roco shop across the street. Awesome fish tacos! We actually ate there twice because we were craving the fish tacos almost immediately following the first night eating them. They also had very good chicken tacos.
Finally Monday rolled around and we were on our way to Solvang to stay in the Danish settlement started in 1911. We stayed in Svendsgaard's Danish lodge, which was a really cute looking little place. The Danish began coming to California initially because cities in Denmark were becoming really crowded and there was not enough work for everybody. Our first afternoon there we just walked around town checking out the shops. We found a really nice bookshop and an art gallery that had amazing glass sculptures and even some raku from a guy from Fort Collins! Being cheap/broke, we had dinner the first night at Subway (can you sing "$5 foot loooongs?") and went back to the hotel to watch our first Olympics of the competition.
Solvang
Solvang. They have these cute banners hanging throughout the town. Perfect tourist photo op. Our second day in Solvang, we drove out and did a mini winery tour…we went to two. Firestone Vineyards, the same Firestones who owned the tire company, but got rid of it in the 1980s, was our first stop. As Cody had never been to a wine tasting before, we were going to go on the tour and learn about making wine. We tasted a few wines, some of which we liked, and were waiting for the tour, which we missed because they failed to announce it. We did get some nice wine glasses out of the deal, though. Then we headed over to Fess Parker Winery, of the legendary actor famous for his portrayal of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. We liked these wines much better. The tasting room was really cute and the wine glasses have coonskin caps on them. On our way back into Solvang, we tried to find as many windmills as we could and take pictures of them all. Nickey's mom told us there are supposed to be something like 8 or 9 windmills (we did not find them all). Since we hadn't eaten at a nice place in a while, we decided to spring
Solvang
Svendsgaard's Lodge. Our accommodations for 2 nights. We were on the back side of the building, however. We were close enough to walk to everthing in the town from here. We never met Svendsgaard. for a nice dinner after our long day of wine tasting, so we went to the Café Angelica, serving Italian and American food (I know what you are all thinking, but it is a Danish town-they eat a lot of cabbage and that didn't sound good to Nickey) . We did eat hot dogs though, which Nickey said were everywhere in Denmark, so that was sort of authentic. Next morning was spent at the Elverhoj Museum and hand-built dream home of renowned artist and Danish immigrant Viggo Brandt-Erichsen. His home has been turned into an art showcase and museum about early Danish immigrant life. This was a nice side-trip while we waited for the Farmer's Market to begin at 2:30. The market was one of the better ones that we have been to and we found plenty of food to satisfy us for dinner and lunch the next day. We then stole as much ice for the cooler from the hotel, as we could and were off again to our next destination. Next time: Monterey Bay Aquarium and our night as lighthouse keepers (more like lighthouse sleepers, but that's neither here nor there!)
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