3rd Road Trip

Phew!  After Uncle Paul left on Thursday it was time for me to do some more laundry and pack us all up for our 3rd and final major road trip of the summer, Solvang, California. 

Andy's mom and his Aunt Terri co-own a time share.  Back at Thanksgiving(?) we picked out Solvang for a summer trip.  Solvang is made to look just like a Danish town. It was the inspiration behind Leavenworth, Washington, which is made to look like a Bavarian town. 

We were going to take 101 down, but last minute chose I5. I5 is probably the most boring road in all of California.  Between Sacramento and Los Angeles it is a wasteland.  You have to get off on a side highway  to get to any nice town.  When we took our little highway, it was nothing. And then all of a sudden we found ourselves on the exact stretch of road that James Dean died on.  Crazy!?!?!  I was looking for a place for breakfast and found a place and all these reviews kept talking about James Dean so I googled it and sure enough, we passed right by where he died in his car accident.  Eerie.

We made it to Solvang around 10:30ish, and met up with Diana and Terri.  The time share was really nice. It wasn't super large like the last one we stayed in, which was nice.  We had a ground floor, our own patio with hedges and we were in the back of the complex so it was very quiet.  We got lucky and had a hot tub right by our room so that was convenient! We put the kid's down for nap and then Andy and I went to explore the town. Andy had gotten sick with a sinus cold so he wasn't top notch. 

The town is uber adorable!  The attention to detail was amazing.  It was so cute!  Andy's dad got in around 6:30 and we all made dinner. Which is another nice thing, a full kitchen so we all brought tons of food so we could make our meals. 

The next day we took the kids to this awesome park in town. 

It is all Danish looking. The kids went crazy!  Running all over the place, they had a gingerbread house that Verona loved to sit inside, a Dragon Boat to "drive".  We went to the park twice while we were there. That's how awesome it was!

The timeshare also had a wading pool. It was barely heated so it was perfect for the warm weather. 

We went downtown all of us and walked around.

I mean, isn't this town just super cool?!?

We also hung out at the timeshare.

V wearing Aunt Terri's sunglasses I believe.

Andy and I got a date night and we went to The Hitching Post II  This is where a few scenes from "Sideways" was filmed.  We had to go.  Merlot, not even, we had Pinot Noir which is what the area is known for.  The wine was delicious.  The food was pretty good, the service was meh. 

I found these signs inside a store and they made me laugh.

With football season starting up this just seemed appropriate. 

Overall, we had a great time in Solvang spending it with Diana, Terri and Andy's dad, Andy. 

However, the day we left was another adventure.............