caracolina

After another early morning MacDonalds trip we left Santa Barbara to drive home to Phoenix by way of the “Danish town” Solvang, north of S.B. Some might say Solvang is a bit of tourist trap, but it is definitly nice to see a town that is NOT looking like any other town. The old town is full of little shops, pastry places, and restaurants. We have been there before but never for long. This time the main purpose was to stop at the Village Spinning & Weaving Store, where John had bought fiber and natural dye stuffs for my birthday extravaganza. This is a cool store, it seems small but it is literally crammed full of fibers, yarns, books, fiber art paraphernalia, etc. In spite of my repeated warnings not to let me go loose inside John patiently let me spend way too much money on books and yarn, yowza!

At this poing both of us had worked up an appetite and ended up lunching at the Red Viking down the street. By the way, in spite of the sunny weather it was really cold, with wind gusts that bit right through my light jacket. Or rather, I’m just a complete wimp these days. Anyway, John tried the smorgasboard (which for some reason is pronounced “shmorgasboard”) and I had red cabbage and potatoes. The food was ok, nothing crazy good, but did hit several spots but one, which was taken care of next door at the Solvang Restaurant: desert. We tried “Arne’s world famous aebleskiver” which are ball-shaped pancakes covered in raspberry jam. This makes them look a bit like meat balls I think, but of course they were yummy.

On our way home both of us got sleepy from the food so we decided to tank up on Starbucks. However, as we approached Goleta we realized we should give Uncle Woody a call and find out if he was up for a McDonalds rendezvous – and he was! We had coffee at the McD’s near Costcos for a while until we really needed to shake the proverbial leg. The drive home was uneventful except for dinner. We stopped for In & Out Burger at the Ramon Road exit off the I-10 and entered a mad house! It was incredibly busy and it took a while to get our order.