Solvang, California

Driving back from dropping Carl off at Cal Poly, we took a quick little sidetrip off Highway 101 to visit Solvang. A laid back tiny little town, it was founded in 1911 by three guys from Iowa, who were Danish and wanted to establish a Danish-style village to promote the arts and traditions of their original homeland. They checked out the area near the old Mission Santa Inez, and were sold on the beauty, the fertile soil, the great climate and the availability of water. So they bought about 9,000 acres and named the town Solvang, which means "Sunny Meadow" in English. They built a folk school and some Danish style buildings and houses and Solvang became another sleepy town on the map. Today, Solvang is surrounded by huge vineyards and a big thoroughbred ranch. The tourists come to town to shop in the dozens of varied stores, and to indulge in a myriad of Danish pastries, cookies and cakes.



The main drag through town is Mission Drive. I am guessing that it eventually leads to the old Spanish Mission. There are Danish flag-style Solvang banners lining Mission Drive.



We parked near this pretty little park, and headed out for the quick stroll through the village.



Denmark's most beloved and famous son is honored and celebrated in Solvang. Here is a profile of the prolific storyteller, Hans Christian Andersen.
I knew that somewhere in Solvang there was a little museum dedicated to the author, and finding it was on my list on things to do, besides finding a place for lunch.



This restaurant is actually one of the original building put up by those 3 Danish Iowans. It served as their school for 3 years, and then the men built a bigger structure on the edge of town and moved out of this little building. It was turned into a Lutheran church until 1929, when it became a Danish restaurant. And it still is today.



We found the Hans Christian Andersen Museum. It is hidden upstairs in The Book Loft, a used book store. After perusing the collection of memorabilia, I learned some interesting things about the man. He was born April 2, 1805, and he left home at age 14 to make his fortune in Copenhagen. His handwriting was really hard to read. He wrote letters to answer his fan mail. And he wasn't instantly successful. After trying his hand at a variety of forms of writing, he discovered that his best shot at success was in the childrens fairy tale genre.Everyone is familiar with his most popular stories, "The Ugly Duckling", "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", and "The Princess and The Pea".

Those were just a few of his 160 fairy tales. As a young child, I took some kind of strange pleasure in reading his stories, "The Little Match Girl", and "The Fir Tree" Both of those stories had truly awful endings. And even at a tender age, I was always a realist and appreciated the fact that things don't always end up "happily ever after." Wonder what a shrink would have thought of a kid who liked unhappy endings? Anyhow, the other interesting thing about Andersen is that he was really good at making elaborate paper cutout silhouettes, and he would give them to children. Also, he never got married. He would get these romantic crushes on women, but they never amounted to anything real. And he never really had any true frienships, either. So he lived and died a lonely man. Which may explain his ability to write really sad fairy tales with unhappy endings. He lived to be 75 years old, which is pretty good for those days.



We found a great little restaurant called, "The Red Viking", on Copanhagen Street. They served breakfast all day, along with lunch and dinner. You could get regular American food, or you could order a more Danish-style lunch, which I did. I ordered the Danish meatball lunch. The meatballs were served cold, sliced thinly, on flat Danish bread. They were covered with a mound of sweet pickled red cabbage and another mound of thinly sliced sweet pickled baby cucumbers. It was really good. They also had a Danish All-you-can- eat steam table. I may have to try that next time we visit.

I had to take a photo of Windmill Glassworks, because it was distinct and pretty. And of course right next to the big windmill, was another spot that required a photo:



Here is the Solvang Post office. We walked inside and visited with the window clerk on duty. She told us she is a Part Time Flexible working 25 hours a week. Her husband was a high level Manager, and the re-organization required him to find a regular old supervisor position. She had her fingers crossed and was thinking positive about her future with the Postal Service. She was so friendly and pleasant. And then she offered to come outside and take our photo. We wished her luck in the upcoming "right-sizing" that the USPS is conjuring up as I write this.

I have a feeling this won't be the last time we stop by Solvang for a quick visit. Because we haven't even checked out the Danish Bakeries yet.......

Off to College!

I used to laugh at my elders, not really believing them when they used to say that time flies. While they watched us grow and marveled at the quickness of it all, time seemed to plod on for us young ones. Then something happens. We grow up, get jobs, get married, have kids, and suddenly, time concepts change. And then we discover that Grandma was right: Time flies. I have entered that phase of life too. For it seems like just a few years ago that we were standing in front of our house with a newborn baby, and now suddenly, that newborn is 18 years old, and about to begin student life at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.




I remember this day like it was yesterday. Carl's first day of Kindergarten. I made a tradition of taking his photograph on the first day of school each year in the same spot: On the walkway in front of our house. Back in 1996, there was a fence. On this day, Carl was a little nervous. I was too. After all, I was sending my almost 5 year old boy to a magnet school on the other side of town. I wasn't familiar with the neighborhood or the teachers, and the only thing that made both of us feel better was that his best friend from preschool was also going to be attending the school. Watching that little boy head off towards his classroom was gut wrenching. But, I didn't let him know how I felt. I just watched him go.



Fast forward to September 2009. Here is Carl, now 18 years old, heading off to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Still wearing shorts and polo shirts, and still carrying the shoulder bag, only now it holds a laptop instead of a notebook, pencils, and crayons. The fence is gone, the houses across the street have new people and new paint jobs. As I took this photo, I thought back to that first day of school, and that stomach ache I had as I forced myself to let him go. Now, as I looked at my grown son getting ready to leave his hometown for college life, I had more than just a stomach ache. My heart was actually hurting. But I couldn't let him know how I really felt, so I just kind of joked about it. And I snapped the photo.



There is always lots of stuff to pack for your college-bound kid. Luckily, it all fit in the car. Even George, the T-Rex, given to him from his girlfriend as a birthday gift the day before.



We got up at 5:00 AM Sunday to start packing the car. We wanted to get an early start on our long drive. Craig got up before dawn and came over to see us off. And our next door neighbor came out in her jammies and slippers to take this shot of all of us just before we hit the road.

We arrived after the mad rush of new students, most of whom moved in the day before. That made it really easy to park, unload, and locate Carl's dorm building. We had visited the school over the summer and stayed one night in one of the dorms. Carl was not thrilled with the idea of living in one of those buildings. It was quite a surprise for all of us to discover where he would be living for the next year.



The view from Carl's front door. Could it get any better than this?



The building is like a motel, sort of. Carl's room is on the ground floor, corner unit. He has one roommate. There is a bathroom that they will share with 6 other students. That is much better than the building we tried out last August, where an entire floor of students had to wander around in the halls or stairwells to get to their showers. Carl lucked out. And his roommate seems to be a great guy, too.



So, we brought all his things in, dropped them off, snapped a photo of Carl in his new digs, and then, with my stomach churning and heart aching, we hugged him goodbye and headed back home. Its hard to let go. Because I really thought I would have just a little more time to get used to all this. I can't believe how fast time really does fly.

Golden Colorado

We took a recent trip to Golden Colorado, to visit the Colorado School of Mines. It was one of the many colleges we visited in the Spring of 2009. The school specializes in all kinds of Engineering degrees. It is located in the tiny little town of Golden, not far from the Coors Brewery.



We arrived in February, and got a room at a really nice La Quinta Hotel. It was really cold (at least for us wimpy Californians), and that night, it started snowing. Of course, we had to get a shot of me shivering on the balcony in the freezing night, just so we could have a personalized snapshot of the snow collecting on the ground.


Besides taking the college tour, we planned to spend some time with my Colorado family members. Here is Carl and me with my brother and his son, my sister and brother-in-law, and their granddaughter. The visit was painfully short, because we had to catch a flight home, but it was great to catch up on who's doing what, and to see my brother's son for the first time.



This is the Mountain that looms over Golden. Walking around the beautiful but icey campus while on our tour, my eyes kept wandering towards this gorgeous sight. I think its called Table Mountain. The School of Mines has a great tradition for incoming freshmen. Their first week at school is loaded with traditional activities. One of them requires that they all bring a 10 pound rock from home. They then are expected to scale a tall mountain, up to where the big white M is located, high above the campus. There, they leave their rock, and together they work to give the big M a whitewashing. At the end of their 4 years at Mines, they again scale the mountain to retrieve their rock and take it home with them. For some reason, I really got a kick out of that tradition. It reminded me of when Carl was a little guy. Wherever we traveled, he always found a rock that he wanted to bring home as a souvenir. We've got little rocks from Canada, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and umpteen other places, laying around the front steps at home.



For years, we have been tormented by repeated Sonic commercials. I say tormented, because the commercials had us convinced that we just HAD to drive up and order one of the many great cold drinks that flashed across our TV screen. Trouble was, we didn't have a Sonic to drive to. So when we planned our trip to Golden to visit the school, I googled Sonic to see if they had one there. And they did! You should have seen the look on Carl's face when I told him we were going to finally get to a Sonic. After getting lost, and subsequently driving around in circles due to some bad Mapquest directions, we finally found it. There it was. The Sonic! Here is Carl, finally standing at the Sonic menu.



Now, I have to admit, the food is not so hot. It kind of reminded me of the snack bar food we had at the Midway Drive-in Theater, long gone from San Diego. But the drinks. Oh, the drinks. There were so many to choose from, we actually went back the next day to try some more.



This was Carl's drink. Some kind of Berry slurpee-type of thing. The first time we went, I had a drink that tasted sort of like a grape milk shake. Delicious. The next day, I had a Coconut Creme Pie Milk shake. Even better.



A closing shot of a frosty, freezing fast rushing body of water heading through downtown Golden. The shot was taken at dusk. It was freezing cold with snow flurries, and getting colder by the minute. But out on a big rock in this cold river, barely visible in this photo, a small group of people stood watch while a young couple exchanged wedding vows amid nature's harsh elements. I thought about the venue and the weather that these young people were getting married in. And my conclusion was that these people wanted to acknowledge that life will not be all sunny and warm. That circumstances will test their strength. And they are willing to meet life's tests head on. Together.

Golden is a town full of friendly people. They have a great University, a huge brewery, some famous landmarks like Buffalo Bill's grave, and the cool "Howdy Folks" sign. I wish we could have had another day or two to really explore the area. But, it just gives me another town to put on my "Gotta go back there" list.

A Padre Baseball Game

I love baseball. And I love the Padres. I know, they are just an expansion team. They have been to the World series only twice since they were elevated to Major League Status back in 1969. And they have won only one World Series Game. I still remember it. I was there in October of 1984. It was Game 2 between the Tigers and Padres at Jack Murphy Stadium. Kurt Bevacqua, a character who wasn't that good most of the time, hit a 3 run homer to give us a come from behind victory. That was it. It's been since 1984, but I am still keeping the faith. That's how it is with Baseball. Sometimes the 2nd or 3rd string players end up being the hero. You just never know. So you never give up on a game.

I used to go to lots of games. That was back when the Padres played at then Jack Murphy, now Qualcomm Stadium. Tickets were cheap. Seats were easy to get. Even Good seats were easy to get. Then, after a winning season, the public was given a song and dance that the Padres needed their very own ballpark to play in. Smaller, cozier, more state of the art, and downtown, where the action is. So it was put on the ballot, voted on, and the ballpark was built.

Now the Padres play at Petco Park. It is a really nice ballpark across the street from the Convention Center, near the Trolley, surrounded by high rise fancy hotels. The ticket prices went through the roof, and any seats I could afford are so far out in left field, that I really can't follow the game. So, in the past 5 years, I've only been to 3 games. Which is kind of sad, for a person like myself, who is a rabid baseball fan. Thats how it goes. But, any time I get the opportunity, I'll jump at it. Like today: August 22, 2009



Craig bought a couple of tickets from the lady who owns the Video rental store in the neighborhood. She has season tickets down in the field level, just to the first base side of Home Plate. And just a few rows from the very front. He never had been to a Petco park Padres Game, and wanted to experience it from the best seats he could get. I was the lucky person who got to go along as his guest!


Here is Craig with his ticket. You can see the red uniforms of the St Louis Cardinals, taking batting practice in the background.



I asked the nice attendant to snap a photo of both of us. In the background you can see the Western Metal Supply Company building. That is a relic of the old structures that once inhabited this block. The planners incorporated it into the ball park, and Western Metal now is where you buy group Padres tickets and enjoy food and drinks in a room with a closed circuit TV. You can watch the game from inside the room, or go out to the seats and try to catch one of the rare home runs that sometimes end up in the Western Metal Building.



Here they go. The Padres are taking the field. Its 7:05 PM. Play Ball!



This is Tony Gwynn, Number 18, at bat. Tony is the son of Tony Gwynn, Number 19, now retired. Number 19 played his whole career as a Padre. Now, his son has come home to play for the Padres. Number 18 is a good disciplined hitter, and what I like about him is that he rarely swings at the first pitch.



This is Adrian Gonzalez. Our fantastic first baseman. This guy has 33 home runs, even though he is mired in a weak-hitting line up and is frequently walked. The thing that I hate about being a Padres fan is that I realize their role is to basically develop the great players who will end up on large market teams. We just can't afford to keep them once they get established. So, I am sure we won't have Adrian much longer. But, while he's here, I sure do enjoy watching his sure-handedness at first, and his sweet swing at the plate.




Just a photo of the message board with Tony Gwynn's photo.



One thing about Padre games. You usually need other entertainment to take your mind off of what's going on down on the field. I really don't understand this mascot. A fusion of Friar and Frankenstein.



Look how close our seats were to Friar-stein!



The excitement peaked with the Friar race. Friars from different eras raced each other. The 70s Friar (The dude with the big Afro) won.

We brought our gloves to the game. And we almost caught a foul ball too. It was so close. As in, hitting off the top of Craig's glove, and bouncing into the lap of the lady sitting in front of you kind of close.

I also want to mention that the Padres have this great food deal, called the Five for Five deal. For $5.00, you get a brown paper bag with a hotdog, popcorn, peanuts, and a chocolate chip cookie. Plus a Coke. Best deal in the ballpark.




Okay. You can see by the final summary that we were shut out, 7 to nothing, by the Cardinals, who happen to be a very good team. We were basically shut down in the first inning. Well, I've seen alot of games like this in the past several decades. But, like I have said. You should never give up. Because with baseball, anything can happen. I had a blast at the game. Great seats, great company, great deal on food. So we didn't win. There's always tomorrow.

The Mystical Old City of Safed

This is a travelers brochure for Safed. Safed is an ancient city high in the Galilee hills. We visited Safed in the height of summer. Unlike the sweltering, humid coastal modern city of Tel Aviv, Safed was dryer and more comfortable. This city is home to ultra-religious Jewish families. It is also home to dozens of artists, who have set up an Artists colony along the narrow alleyways of the old city. I had been looking for a particular piece of jewelry inspired by a biblical reference, and I found the perfect pendant at a tiny shop in the Artists colony. It was exactly what I was looking for and couldn't find elsewhere.



Narrow and uneven walkways, hundreds of years old, were interesting to wander through. Little shops displaying oil and acrylic paintings, jewelry, pottery, metalworks, and glass, were tucked in along the way.



Being a religious city, there were reminders along the way that women were expected to dress in a respectful manner, if they wanted to enter the synagogues or other mystical religious spots in this city. We brought long sleeve blouses and light weight ankle-length skirts in our day packs so we could quickly adhere to the expectations, if we wanted to check out the inside of a synagogue. It was really no problem at all. Otherwise, I wore hiking shorts and boots, and tank tops.



I was taking a photo of something on the wall, but what really made this photo cool was the family in the background. I could tell they are not really that amused with the daily onslaught of their city by irreverent tourists. We all feel like that when strangers invade our towns, so I could relate.



One thing I noticed right away were the many posters of Rabbi Schneerson. He was born in Ukraine in 1902, went to Berlin to study math and science, was chased out by the Nazis, and ended up in New York in 1941, where he spent the next 45 years leading the Lubavitch movement, which believes that if everyone takes responsibility for their actions, and starts doing good deeds, it will usher in the messianic age. It seems so simple doesn't it? If we all just start being good to each other, the world will be a better place. The thing is, everyone has to participate in this concept, for it to work. Anyhow, the Rabbi died in 1994, not seeing his dream realized. He did, however, get a Congressional Gold Medal for his attempts to improve things in the world.


Tour groups usually have an armed guide, or armed security. This group had their protection, like everyone else. We felt pretty safe in Safed.

A pretty cool store: The Safed Candle Factory. This store made candles of every type. You could see them in the process of their work. They had candles you could buy, and candle art that was not for sale.



They had space aliens from other planets.


Remember the Bible story about little David slaying the Giant Goliath with just a litle sling shot and small round stones?

Another David and Goliath depiction in wax.


I am a Noah's ark fan, and I loved this one. There were all sorts of great animals, both inside the ark and in the water below. I really got a kick out of the fact that they had a Snoopy beagle napping on the edge of the ark, oblivious to the cataclismic event going on around him.



The Safed Zoo. They had shelves full of different animals for sale.



A wax depiction of the story of Joseph, as a big wig in Egypt, listening to his brothers (who sold him into slavery years before and told their dad that he had been killed by a wild animal) now coming to him to beg for food during the great famine. Of course, they didn't recognize him after all those years, and Joseph had to play a few pay-back games with them.


I loved the wax books on the bookshelf, because I am an uncontrolled book collector and have thousands of them everywhere. So many books to read, so little time.



"Live Long and Prosper"
On a very old building in the old city, we noticed this and were reminded of Star Trek's Mr Spock. Wasn't this his way of saying goodbye to his Vulcan pals?

San Luis Obispo 2009

We took a recent drive to San Luis Obispo California, to visit the University where Carl will be attending this fall. Of course, we had to also see some of the sights in town as well, so I'll get the gross landmark out of the way.

Bubblegum Alley: This is a weird little space in between two downtown buildings. The entire length of each wall is covered, disgustingly covered, with chewed up gum. Evidently, the city authorities gave up on this little footpath alley decades ago, and let destiny takes its course. The result is a truly unique, though germy attraction.



We knew the wherebouts of this thing was somewhere around Higuera and Garden Sts. Before we saw it, we smelled it--strong odor of chewed spearmint gum, bubblegum, you-name-it- kind of gum. It was actually a larger set of twin gum walls than I had imagined. Oh, yeah, and the police officers who spoke to us at the University's orientation program told us that not only do people love to leave their gum there, they also like to pee there every night.

I just love the smell of a million people's chewed up gum in the morning!


Everyone likes to leave a little DNA behind. Carl made like he was going to push his dad into the wall, and my latent germophobia suddenly kicked in. Aaaaarrrgh!

Otherwise, San Luis Obispo is a beautiful little town on the Central coast. Surrounded by rolling hills, with the beach about 10 minutes away by car, this town is known for its fantastic Cal Poly University. A bargain university that provides a first-class education, they specialize in Architecture, Agriculture, and Engineering.




Here is the new college student at the sign on Monterey and Grand.



This is a typical dorm room. It houses two people. After spending his whole life in a tiny 1925-era bedroom, with 3 doors opening up into the space, Carl can already see that even with another person in the dorm room, he will have plenty of space. Even his closet, as tiny as the dorm closet is, is twice as wide as his closet back home. Having recently been to Europe, Carl commented that the cement buildings reminded him of the old soviet-era apartments he saw while he was on tour.



This is Musty the Mustang, who is the school mascot. Musty marks a memorial for Cal Poly students who have passed away over the years, from various wars, and a terrible airplane accident from 1960, that evidentally killed 22 or so people from the football team.



A shot of some of the student housing. You can see the big white P on the hill above the University grounds.



Back at the hotel in town. We stayed at the La Cuesta. Its right off the 101 on Monterey St, about a mile walk to downtown. This is a really nice hotel, compared with the rat trap across the street that we stayed at in April of this same year. Its got a clean solar heated pool. Complimentary Breakfast in the morning consisting of: bagels (with a toaster) oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, waffles, fruit juice, coffee, and tea. In the afternoon they have hot and iced tea and plates of cookies. They have a binder filled with the menus of every eating place in the area. Also, they have a bookshelf full of DVDs for you to watch if you want. We saw the one about the Frost/Nixon interviews, which was an interesting movie.




The water was cold, and I am spoiled by hot swimming pools. I got used to it once I got in there. The hot tub was great after the cold swim; it felt good after a long drive and a 5 mile walk around the town.



This cute little thing stands outside the Splash Cafe. They have breakfast and lunch there. It is a place I am sure we will try during one of our many trips to SLO in the next 4 years.


The Mission


For those who aren't aware of California's history, I'll put it in a quick paragraph. The Spanish Missionaries, headed by Juniperro Serra, (the statue in the photo above) started establishing Missions along a coastal route beginning in San Diego around 1769 and heading north, for two main purposes:to get a leg up on the Russians who also were exploring the territory, and to convert the Native peoples to Catholicism. San Luis Obispo came to be in 1772. The Friars finished up in Sonoma in 1823, and not long after that the Mexican Government basically evicted the Spanish guys and sent them back to where they came from. Politics, years of battles, and treaties have brought us to the here and now, where the Missions (or their remnants) are Historical Landmarks. Some are beautifully restored, others are rubble, from the centuries of earthquakes that California is famous for.



I had no idea that they named their bells until I visited this Mission.



If you click on this photo, you'll be able to read it better.



A view from the front.





Beside the sanctuary, was this beautiful grape arbor. And beside the arbor, were some very old bells.






This Mission has the biggest collection of items from its earlier days. There are rooms filled with artifacts from the early mission days, newspapers, clothing, Native American tools and clothing. So much to look at. This Mission, and all its treasures has been lovingly cared for. If you are in the neighborhood, its worth a stop, especially if you are into eras gone by.





This little stream runs right across the street from the Mission. This also appears to be the place where hippies, bums, and derelicts like to sit with their dogs, not doing anything in particular. There were lots of them there that day.



Yes, it has to be. There must be photos of the USPS office.



Here is another view of the San Luis Obispo Post Office.

SLO is a great little town. Downtown is walkable and filled with great places to eat and shop. There is just enough weirdness to make it an interesting place. I sure do wish I was the one getting to go to college!