Solvang

We took a little detour on the drive from San Luis Obispo to Oceanside because we wanted to check out the little danish-ish town Solvang. In order to sell the boys on our plan, we told them we'd stop for ice cream. We picked the first place listed in the navigation and hit the road. The ice cream shop was closed. Foreshadowing?

Solvang is a very quaint little town. I am going to be honest here, it was a little weird. Even though it was Wednesday it felt like a Sunday afternoon in Provo--a ghost town. There are lots of shops which we explored. But it was SO HOT  and none of the stores had air conditioning. We went to a two level store that consisted of a whole bunch of little rooms all filled with clothes and nick knacks. They smelled like a grandma's attic, stuffy and a little off and there were no employees. None. Their system is to bring purchases down to the bearded man who works in the cafe. I wonder how that is working out for them. We could have taken any number of tacky t-shirts and random statues except that we couldn't stand to be in the rooms longer than a few seconds because they were so smelly. Also that would be stealing.

We did stop at one of those places that "researches" your family crest and motto and history. The boys were so excited about it we made a purchase.

 Nice work Francis family crest designer. As for the McGarry crest, well, I had higher hopes.

Weird vibes aside, there were windmills in Solvang and windmills are always cool.

It is not my intention to trash talk Solvang. It's just it was so dang hot (see what I did there?). I think we were all a little hard to please. We also didn't really immerse ourselves in the culture. If I would have known what aebleskiver was I probably would have dared try it and I think that could have changed everything.

Would we go back to Solvang? Maybe. There is a Hans Christian Anderson museum we didn't check out. And if you are wondering how hot it was,  Zack and I predicted at least 98 degrees and were shocked to discover that it was only 84. The hottest 84 degrees ever!! I get what they mean about dry heat.