Solvang

We left at noon-ish on Friday (October 6) of the Columbus Day weekend and drove approximately 4-ish hours to Solvang, California.  It is a small, cute Danish town.  Jeremy had been a couple times as a child.  We got to drive many parts of Hwy. 1 and 101--who have great ocean views from the road.  We had dinner in Solvang at the Red Viking Restaurant.  We had gone in to view the buffet, which we ended up passing on, but stayed for an average dinner.  Our hotel for the night was in Buellton at one of the Hilton's, about a five minute drive from Solvang.  On Saturday morning, we walked all of the streets, checking out chocolate stores, bakeries, dress shops, antiques, bookstores, toy stores, etc. ...and lots of windmills.

Shortly after noon, we drove about 30 minutes to Lompoc and met up with our Ridgecrest friends, the Covington's for a couple hours and a homemade picnic lunch.  They'd recently moved to the Lompoc area and suggested touring one of the historic El Camino Real Missions that dot the land from southern Mexico to north Central California.