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California Road Trip

In the summer of 2018 I took my daughter on a 9-day road trip through California. Here is our little story. I split up day 8 in two parts as I didn't write for day 9 (it was a straight shot home)

Day 8, part 2

We arrived at the King Frederik Inn in Solvang at 3:30pm. Plenty of time to walk around and we didn't have to set up a tent. The inn also had a pool. It was 85 degrees. We facetimed Marie and she guessed correctly where we were. She asked if we could bring chocolate home. We walked around and I took some pics of the town with and without Katie in them. We scouted where we were going to buy the chocolate and ice cream for ourselves on the way back to the hotel later.

When we did so, we entered a little shop that offered both. That shop had a lot of signs posted everywhere which actually gave it a little bit of a negative vibe. "Minimum credit card purchase $5". Okay then. "When your kid reaches under the glass and touches an item, you buy it" and "No loitering. We are a small shop so when you bought something, don't stand in front of our merchandise so new clients can see". Really? When I ordered the ice cream and asked for two spoons I was worried for an instant she would pull out a sign that said "Only one (1) spoon per ice cream cup or cone please". But she didn't.

We ate our ice cream on a bench next to a horse drawn carriage. After we finished it we headed back to the hotel and jumped in the pool. We gave each other directions on how to swim. "Using only hands", and "only legs (the duck)", "dog paddle" etc. I told Katie that I wondered what the perfect water temperature is for me to get used to immediately. Even when it's 80 it always feels cold in the beginning. Going into a hot tub of 104 also doesn't feel comfortable, which is the other opposite. So it must be in between. Katie said she thinks it's 90. She may be right as it is probably the temperature of your skin.

Later in the evening we had dinner at the Red Viking restaurant, only 2 blocks from our hotel (pretty nice to stay downtown ). Katie read about the history about Solvang on the back of the menu. Among other stuff it said that "Solvang has the best climate yearlong in California ". I said that I thought it was pretty hot today though. She said that it's most likely because of global warming. I said that’s possible because last month again heat records were broken all over the world. She looked worried and asked if there is anything that can be done about it. I told her we should stop burning coal, gas and oil (and derivatives of oil). "Why don't we?", she asked and I said that the people who sell oil, gas and coal don't want to give it up and keep making lots of money from it. They don't care what happens in the future because they won't be alive and only care about here and now". "That is very selfish of them." she said.

The next morning when we stepped outside our room I was a little surprised by all the white and off-white cars in front of the Inn.

We left for home, but on our way we briefly stopped at the cute store Tabula Rasa Essentials in Manhattan Beach, California. This store sells my prints on metal and I had not been there yet.

Arriving back in Carlsbad, Katie and I were happy to see Marie again. We ate some Solvang chocolates and talked about the trip. Katie's favorites were the sea otters in Monterey Bay, the cable car rides and the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Even though I loved the whole trip, if I had to pick my favorites it was (getting ready for) our first camp site,  swimming in the river in northern California and also the cable cars.