Friday 11 December 2009

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Awake: 6:45am     Temp 51      sleep 7+00      drizzle --- rain    overnight @ Buellton, CA.

We did not open our slides during our Paso Robles visit; during these times of consistent precipitation, we keep the coach shrunk & get to know each other better...& occasionally sleep on separate couches.

We left the Paso Robles RV Ranch @ 8:23am without scraping any parts of our undercarriage on the steep hill. Following State road-101, we continue to admire all the beautiful hills, valleys & canyons, plus seeing vineyards on both sides of the road that seem to go on forever; this 101 route is simply an eye opener. Plus throughout the day, our windshield wipers got a good work out.

We arrived @ the Flying Flags RV Park & Campground in Buellton, CA @ 10:55am. This campground is quite pricey...but we have a choice: pay the big bucks & enjoy a nice campsite for the night or dry-camp in their open field with no hook-ups. We chose the open field.

We were told that the open field is hard ground & we shouldn't have to worry about sinking in grass. During our travels today, we had off & on drizzle & rain; however the rain system haven't drenched Buellton very much ...so far today.

Today's travel: 97 miles 2+02 time 17 gal used 5.7 mpg 42 mph avg speed.

Driving on the open pasture, the grass covered earth definitely felt solid, bumpy, but solid. I was comfortable about doing this, but hope we don't get too much more rain tonight.

As we sat & had a early lunch, Kathy read about the nearby town of Solvang, & how in the early 1950's a group of local Danes decided to build their business buildings & homes using genuine, old-world Danish techniques & styles. Well, after I read the same article, we had to go & see this.

When visiting the city of Paso Robles, I thought nobody could top that place for good living with all the wonderful little stores & things to see & do; that was, until we walked & roamed the streets of Solvang. Those business buildings & homes were so inviting on the outside, you wanted to go inside to peruse the rest.

The whole town looked & felt just like a genuine Danish village with the half-timbered walls & steep roofs & brick-work sidewalks & colorful containers of flowers, etc. So we continued strolling along the streets, savoring the fragrance of fresh Danish pastries & baking aebleskiver (ball-shaped Danish pancakes, served with jam & powdered sugar). The aroma was tempting but we were tough & resisted.

We tried to buy some fresh Danish whole wheat bread from (3) different bakeries but they were all sold out for the day. I even tried on a pair of Danish wooden shoes but they didn't come with arch supports so I gave up on that too. DSC08120.JPG
Of course, a Danish town would be remiss if it did not honor Denmark's most famous figure, the beloved storyteller & writer of more than 160 fairy tales: Hans Christian Anderson. His stories, such as "The Ugly Duckling," "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Little Mermaid," & "The Princess & the Pea," have been translated into more than 100 languages & told to children throughout the world. He also wrote plays, travel journals, novels & poetry. We enjoyed a perusal of the rather small museum dedicated to Anderson's life & work located upstairs in the Book Loft Building. 

Yes, this town was active & the stores were very busy; we didn't see anything made in China... but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

I am sorry Paso Robles, but after a very good tour of Solvang, you will fall into 2nd place in my book of: "The best small cities in the west" so far.

En route to our dry camping field, we stop @ Anderson's Pea Soup restaurant & shared a light dinner of: a bowl of pea soup (really good) & a Reuben sandwich.

We ran our generator for 3.3 hrs & did some searching for our next campground for tomorrow.

Again, we kept the bus shrunk & slept on separate couches.

Lights out: 10:29pm.


 

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This page contains a single entry by George Monte Kirsch published on December 14, 2009 11:13 PM.

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