October 20, 2008

• Solvang

  Anyone else having problems with Xanga today (besides me)?  Frustrating to say the least.  DOH!

  
  

  Here we go with my photos from Solvang.  Here is a little bit about Solvang, borrowed from Wikipedia.org:

  
  

  Solvang is a city in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. The city of Solvang is one of the communities that make up the Santa Ynez Valley. The population was 5,332 at the 2000 census.

  
  

  Solvang was founded in 1911 on 9,000 acres (36 km²) of formerly Spanish land by a group of Danish educators. The settlers of this city left for the west to escape midwestern winters. The city is home to some bakeries, restaurants, and merchants offering a taste of Denmark in California. The architecture of many of the buildings follows traditional Danish style. There is a copy of the famous Little Mermaid statue from Copenhagen, as well as one featuring the bust of famed Danish fable writer Hans Christian Andersen. A replica of the Copenhagen observatory Rundetårn in the scale 1:3 was finished in 1991 and can be seen in the city centre.

  
  

  Basically we can drive four hours south of SJ and can be in a quaint Danish town!

  
  

  Here are a couple of the many windmills you can find in town:

  
  

     

  
  

  Some Danish buildings (all new buildings have to be built in this style):

  
  

    

  
  

  Here is a store that sold beer steins:

  
  

  

  
  

  These two horses took us on a tour of the town (the gal was our tour guide.  She was from Mexico!):

  
  

  

  
  

  Since I work in the gas department, I had to take a photo of this old gas lamp:

  
  

  

  
  

  Here was a very cool way to use an old banister:

  
  

   

  
  

  Not sure how many of you remember Brianna’s former roommate that used their apartment for her personal canvas and painted just about every wall in their apartment, then took off and left Brianna high and dry with rent and cleaning up the apartment?  You can read my Xanga entry here but GUESS WHO I ran into in Solvang?  Yep, THAT roommate.  It was interesting seeing her there:

  
  

  

  
  

  For dinner that evening we went to an Indian casino that was right outside of town.  When we paid for our dinner the cashier asked us if we had a VIP card for the casino.  Of course we didn’t so the gal told us if we went downstairs after dinner and signed up for the VIP card, we could get $5.00 back in spending $$ for the casino along with an additional $50 (for the casino).  Who could beat that deal?  The only thing was we had to spend the $$ there in the casino and PUT UP WITH THE NASTY CIGARETTE SMOKE.  <blech>  So Denise and I signed up for the card and we received the spending $$ (on the card) and the deal was when we came back to the casino (another day), we would receive 50 more big ones!!  We played the dollar slot machines and each time I received a jackpot (small ones), I pressed the button to receive the $$ instead of putting it back into the machine.  That evening I was able to leave with $42 FREE $$!  Denise and I decided to go back to the casino the next morning before leaving town to get our other $50 to spend at the casino and I brought home $32 FREE MONEY!  So total, I won $84!  Cool, eh?  The casino is banking on people putting that money back into the slots (or tables) along with MORE money but we aren’t gamblers so they lost money on us!

  
  

  Before leaving Solvang we stopped at a Danish bakery so Denise could bring some goodies home to her family:

  
  

  (THIS IS A NO DROOLING ZONE, PLEASE):

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  OK, line up – Single file lines please.  I’ll be taking orders now!

  
  

  That was my trip to Solvang.  It was nice to get out of town with Denise as we have not gone ANYWHERE alone, just the two of us since she before she got married (21+ years).

  
  

  I hope you all enjoyed this trip with me!  It’s time to take my meds, take the kids outside to take care of business and watch the movie, “Guess Who’s Coming For Dinner” now!  Have a wonderful Tuesday and be sure to hug your families!

  
  

   

  
  

   

  • 11:56 pm
  • 13 Comments