2006, August 30

Last weekend Kari and I took off for the day and took a road trip.  We really love to take these trips, we ride well together and it's more about the drive than the destination.  We set this trip up exactly the way we like it, a general destination in mind but no time frame and no hurry.  This way if we see something cool we can just stop and check it out.  Anyway this is about our trip.

We left a little later than expected bu Kari wasn't feeling real great so she was a little slow to get started, fortunately she started feeling better shortly after we left.  We headed out on the 10 freeway in So cal on a beautiful morning with the top down on the convertible Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GT going west towards the coast.  It was Saturday morning and although traffic was light it was heavier than either of us expected.  

After getting through LA we started up the coast.  We hadn't been on this part of the 101 since after Madison's service.  Madison was our 6 month old daughter who passed away 8 years ago.  Last time we were on this stretch of road it was winter, matter of fact that year was the year of El Nino, a 10 year weather pattern that sends a ton of Pacific Storms right at the southern coast of CA and Baja.  The hills at that time and the perpetual overcast of the hills made us feel like we were in a different part of the world.  It reminded me of what I would think Ireland Would look like with rolling hills broken up by lonely stretches of roads and black sea cliffs.  

It looks much different this time, the hot summer and lack of rain has turned those rolling green hills into the yellow grass covered hills I'm more used to in Southern California.  There's still a sense of difference since after the last 2 hours of driving this is the first area of road that isn't jam packed with homes, apartments, strip malls or signs.  It's like suddenly driviing through a space and time warp to another time and place before the massive influx of people to California.  As we head up the coast to our possible destination, Solvang, we check out the small towns that scatter this area some with populations of less than 100 people with names like Cardiff by the Sea, and Cambria.

One area which seems so out of place is Santa Claus Lane in a little town off the 101, we make it a point to stop here on our way back and find it's just a tourist area with a few shops and not even one Christmas store.  Then we reach Santa Barbara, a beautiful town North of Ventura county and I notice a beautiful cemetery on both sides of the freeway that seems to cover from the top of the visible mountain range all the way down to the ocean on both sides of the freeway.  We stopped by on the way home and I attached a couple of photos, this is a beautiful place and we discussed how if I was going to be in this business that someday it would make sense just to work in a place like this.  

We arrived at Solvang about 12:30 and had packed a lunch to keep expenses down but Kari talked me into just going into town and we would 'Just get a little snack' rather than eating the lunch she had prepared.  I easily gave in because truthfully I alway like to do that anyway even though I know this shouldn't be our expensive meal because we would want to go to a nice dinner later.   Anyway, it didn't turn out that well because when we got in town we couldn't find a nice little snack place, everything was either a pastry place (it was at least 95 degrees and neither of us felt like sweets), or sit down restaurants.  To boot there was a car show in town that day and that kept things a little busy and the town lost a little bit of it's norwegian charm.

In case you don't know Solvang is a sister city of a small town in Holland.  All the buildings are Hollandish and they carry the theme as much as possible through the whole town.  Tourism is the primary source of income for this small town of 5,000 10 miles inland and 30 miles north of Santa Barbara.  We walked around for a while longer and ultimately chose and German restaurant and split a sausage sampler.  Kari and I talked about opening up a Cabbage Burger place up there but had found out from one of the locals that the town council does everything in it's power from allowing fast food (even specialty) or street food sales in the town.  I guess that makes sense since the majority of the income in the town is tourism and food related sales people need to make their tips to keep their community going.

On the way back we continued focused more on driving Pacific Coast Highway.  This leg of the famous road unfortunately is not as famous for it's grand vistas and windy cliff/ocean roads.  Most of the driving took us through costal cities like Santa Barbara, Oxnard, Santa Monica and Venice.  We stopped in most, Santa Barbara to get a better look at that incredible cemetery, Santa Monica to take a quick walk up and down the pier, and Venice to check out the famous 'Crazy People'.

Venice by far the most interesting stop, we strolled the entire length of shops and coastal park area and checked out all of the entertainers and shops.  Basically Venice is like a Coast Side swap meet where you can buy Socks, and 3 T-shirts for $10.00 but most of all their specialty is Water Pipes and 'Tobacco' smoking paraphernalia.  We got our Caricature done for the first time ever, too bad the guy absolutely sucked, Kari and I looked like the illegitimate children of Jay leno.

Leaving Venice we headed further down the coast originally intending to get to about Newport and have some dinner, but as it was soon approaching 9:00p we decided to pull in to Redondo Beach Harbor and find something to eat.  Hoping to find a local fish restaurant we were only able to a Joe's Crabshack.  Afterwards he headed home.