Solvang

December 13, 2024

Today we headed west along the coast to Ventura, Santa Barbara and a little town Alesa wanted to visit, called Solvang, which resembles a Danish town and has plenty of pastries as noted on a cooking channel. Just before Santa Barbara we saw a sign for Santa Claus Lane and we just had to stop. So we drove (and sung) down Santa Claus Lane and stopped at Santa Claus Beach before moving on. We toured Santa Barbara quite a bit before heading off to Solvang so the girls could get their pastries. We drove into town and its Nordic buildings, parked and stopped in the first pastry shop. We walked down the street and stopped at two more pastry shops, and, of course, we bought and ate pastries in all three of them. This was before we realized that Solvang was much bigger and grander than we had imagined. It is a very impressive town. We walked most of the town and made many more stops in the shops and bakeries but the girls were suffering from a sugar overload from the first three stops and ate no more no matter how good it looked. But, they did make note to look up recipes when they got home. Solvang was a great find. On the way back to the motel, we decided to drive through Malibu because the Pacific Coast Highway was opened back up as the fires had moved inland and were mostly under control. We did see a lot of scorched land in and above Malibu.