Saturday, February 21, 2009

Today was overcast and cooler but it didn’t rain so I guess we can be thankful for that. We drove around Morro Bay for a bit this morning (very touristy) then decided to drive south to Solvang, a Danish village located in the heart if Santa Ynez Valley Wine Country.

Solvang is a very pretty town but again very touristy and very expensive. We wandered around the shops for a while but found nothing that I needed so badly that I would part with my money, although we did enjoy browsing and taking pictures. There are a lot of places that have wine tasting and that would be fun if you weren’t driving, but seeing how we were driving we felt it best not to do the wine tasting.

Solvang





We came across this pretty fountain in a courtyard while walking around.





From there we went to Buellton, home of Anderson’s Split Pea Soup, and as John loves Split Pea Soup it seemed like a logical place to have lunch. I don’t’ care that much for it but I had a bowl and as it was all you could eat John had two bowls. Thanks Pat for telling me about both Solvang and Anderson’s.

We then came back to Morro Bay on Highway 1 most of the way and what a scenic drive. We passed acres and acres of vineyards and the same for vegetables, and a lot of the vegetable growing land looked like the black muck in the Holland Marsh back home.; also there were lots of cattle grazing on the slopes of hills. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous and everything is so lush and green.

Back at Morro Bay we drove down to Morro Rock in the harbour which is the focal point for the town; Morro Rock is a dome-shaped volcanic peak and stands 578 feet high and covers 50 acres at its base. There were a lot of people out there walking the beach and just enjoying the scenery, we even saw a couple of hardy souls heading out on their surf boards. The natural harbour provides protection for boats of all sizes so there is a marina here and also a small commercial fishing fleet. They have whale watching tours out of here and I inquired about them but they are only on Sundays at this time of year and that didn’t work for us so no tour this time.

Beach at Morro Rock



Looking Into Morro Bay



Morro Rock



We came back to the motel for a while before heading out for dinner. The evening is now just about over, by the time I download my pictures and get some ready for my blog it will be about bedtime, we have a long drive tomorrow so want to get to bed early and up and out of here early in the morning.

As always, today was another great gift of a day in the not so sunny south and we look forward to another good day tomorrow.