Tag Archives: Solvang CA

12/5/2023 Caution: Lots of Family Stuff and Grandkid Photos

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Jeanne’s brother Dave survived his eye surgery like a champ and it was time to head south for grandkid time. Our first stop was back to Atascadero and a couple of weeks at the Elk’s Lodge there. And first on our itinerary was one of 5 year old Ellie’s soccer games. There is no forgetting soccer at that age…it should be called “Herdball”. Nevertheless we did get the opportunity to watch Ellie score a goal. 

Grandparent’s Day/Veteran’s Day Celebration at Hailey & Ellie’s school was next up on the agenda. We have not had the pleasure of attending one of these yet. They did a touching presentation for both.

Both girls enjoy rollerskating so Jeanne found a roller rink in Santa Maria. One weekend we loaded the kids up and took them skating. I was just happy they survived with no major mishaps or injuries! And I have to say, roller skates have certainly evolved over the years (*decades*!) since I was a youngun’ sporting my skates (worn over my shoes) and adjusted with a skate key! Sorry about the pics, low lighting, moving targets, and my horrible camera skills do not mesh well.

7 year old Hailey is currently taking horseback lessons at a local ranch, so we tagged along to watch. She seemed comfortable in the saddle and was pretty capable of controlling her beast.

Mom & Dad celebrated their 13th wedding anniversary while we were there with a weekend away while Oma & Opa watched the girls. We took them out to Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Viewing area near Moonstone Beach just below Hearst Castle. This time of year is when the adults start returning for mating season and they were due any day. They had not arrived yet, but the beach was full of the juvenile males who precede the adults’ arrival. Besides the seals we got views of the Piedras Blancas Light House and of Hearst Castle.

Next up was a (very short, not by choice) stint with grandson Max back in Santa Rosa, CA and a return stay at the Petaluma Elk’s Lodge. Max celebrated his 12th birthday and being so close to Christmas we took him out on a combined shopping spree. He made out with a couple of video games as well as some new duds and shoes. We did not have time for sightseeing activities with Max, but we did get a few days of quality time with him, at the expense of nearly blowing out my shoulder throwing the football with him. Getting old really is a drag…

More sad good-byes and it was southbound and down once again. An overnight stop at the San Luis Obispo Elk’s Lodge, then on to our destination stop at the Santa Barbara Elk’s Lodge for a few days. This was our first time staying at this lodge, which has (16) RV sites, flat gravel with 50A/water and a dump site in the parking area. The name is misleading, the lodge is actually in Goleta which is just south of downtown Santa Barbara. Besides the lounge and dining areas, it had a fairly nice (small) gym, laundry, and shower area.

We wanted to pick up some liquid refreshments for an upcoming visit to Big Bear, so a short road trip was in order. Solvang is home to a very nice beer/wine store and taproom called The Backroom at Valley Brewers. As is our usual custom, we arrived in town just in time for an unexpected, massive downtown Christmas parade. Once we found parking out in the wilderness, a short walk landed us smack dab in the middle of Main St. and the tail end of the parade. A quick bite to eat, then it was on to The Backroom. For you who are unfamiliar and have not read my previous post about a prior visit to Solvang, it is a quaint little Danish styled hamlet, they even claim to be “the Danish capital of America”.

A visit to SoCal is never complete without seeing some Pacific Ocean once in a while. We headed into Santa Barbara and took a stroll around the area of Stearns Wharf. At Chase Palm Park next to the wharf there was a kind of “Art in the Park” thing going on with various artists displaying their works for sale alongside vendors of custom made jewelry. There was also a big outdoor skate park that was fairly busy. We took a walk out to the end of the wharf, taking in the sights, then a short spin around the seaside businesses in that area. We have been somewhat surprised at the low number of homeless visible in this area, but we came across one who was loitering and trash can diving next to the outdoor seating area of one restaurant. Jeanne almost gagged watching him pull out a half full cup of some discarded milky colored drink from the trash can and down it lickety split. 

One last outing took us to downtown Santa Barbara and a foot tour down State St. It is a similar set up to Fremont St. in Vegas, sans the freakazoids dressed in character and those in various states of dress and undress. State St. is closed off to through traffic, however you have to watch out for your life as the throngs of yahoos on E-bikes go scooting along with the pedestrian traffic. It is quite the urban palm tree setting, with the usual types of mall shops and a plethora of eateries and such. It was a daunting task to simply find public parking lots within the maze of downtown one-way streets, but the walking was good.

That’s all for now, we hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, and stay tuned for the next “exciting” installment of “the Recreational Wanderers”…

11/19/2019 More Family Time in Kalifornia

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I know, it’s been a while since my last post. So, for all of you non-family member readers, this is about to be one of the all-time boring-est blog posts you could imagine (hint/warning: many photos of grandkids to follow). We had the last of our big appointments in Redding, CA for some minor repairs on Rosie the Bus. We made the reservations with Martin Hveem Restoration & Coaches after seeing a recommendation by Bob Tiffin himself. So into Redding we went, splitting time between Win-River Casino RV lot and Jeanne’s brothers Dwayne & David (another big thanks to both for their hospitality and patience). As far as the repair work getting done, they did an OK job on most tasks. The only problem – we needed two of four of our slide toppers to be replaced and they completed that, except they replaced the wrong side, rear topper. But I have to say, Hveem made good on the error by refunding the cost of the back topper, basically giving us an unneeded slide topper replacement for free. I’m still smh… We had a good visit with Dave and Dwayne and their families and we actually got a little sightseeing in with Dave. We took him up to Castle Lake near Lake Siskiyou, then stopped off at Dunsmuir Brewery Works for lunch in the big megalopolis of Dunsmuir. The MH repairs, a few good BBQ’s, a night at the local FFA fundraising auction, a little cash donation action at the casino, and in no time almost 4 weeks gone in a flash.

Life is way too hectic at Dwayne’s place!
With a little downtime I just had to get some Halloween rocks painted and ready for launch.
Jeanne & Dave at Castle Lake.
Dave reflects on life at Castle Lake…
Don’t jump, Jeanne, that water is coooold!
Mt. Shasta, overseeing Castle Lake. 

We then continued southbound to the land of grandkids and our first stop, the Sonoma County Fairgrounds RV lot in Santa Rosa, stomping grounds for 7 y.o. grandson Maximus. School interferes a bit with quality grandchild time, we were pretty much limited to weekend time only. So we made the best of it, hitting the local batting cages for some batting practice. Max got to do a little rock painting & hiding at the RV lot, then we hit the fairgrounds for a traveling event called “Pumpkin Nights”. Max got to dress up in his Halloween garb and join the rest of the little ones attending the event. We got a very limited visit with Max this time, but we will see him & his family again at the end of November for T-Giving & his 8th B-Day celebrations when they meet us at Cousin Hailey & Ellie’s house in Atascadero.

Here’s a future batting champ!
“And it’s ouuuuuta heeere!”
The Mighty Casey at the bat…
A gladiator painting rocks with Opa
“Opa, you mean we gotta hide ALL these rocks?!”
Drawing lessons. Oh wow, that beer looks TASTY!
Welcome to Pumpkin Nights at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds!
Ninja Master.
Camera hound!
A walk with Oma through the pumpkin tunnel during the daylight hours…
…then there’s the tunnel during darkness!
Max chillin’ in the beach scene…
The Ninja fights the dragon!
Max and Oma and a funky looking octopus…
Jenn and her mama. “Now where’d that Max disappear to?”
Spooky lights
“Hey Max, would you believe me if I said there was a 6’ spider behind you?!”
A stroll through the gnome garden. 

Speaking of Atascadero (segue…), there we went. Next stop we landed back at the Atascadero Elk’s Lodge. We were ecstatic to find they increased their stay limits at the RV lot to 2-weeks per month. With our plans to include staying in the area until the end of the month, we jumped between 3 facilities – the Elk’s, a short stint at Cava Robles RV Resort, and the Paso Robles RV Ranch, all places we have stayed many times before.

Our stay here included a whole lotta playground time for 3 y.o. granddaughter Haily and 1 y.o. granddaughter Ellie. We hit a neighborhood park, the playground at Cava Robles, including some pool time, and a couple of private playground businesses, Hop’s Bounce House and Mighty Munchkins Play Zone. The girls did their level best to try and wear out Oma & Opa…

Little Miss Ellie racing to the monkey bars.
Hailey climbing like a true monkey…
Ellie’s favorite activity.
Hailey says, “Look out belooooooow!”
This is way too much fun!
Ellie trying her best to try to get “electric hair”!
What a mischievous look!
A real couple of swingers…
Oh yeah, pool time. “Hey Opa, you better hope you got my swimmy diaper on tight!”
Fun with Oma!
Hailey, a real fish.
Fun time in the fountains.
Sunrise, central coast style!
Ain’t we cool!
“I think I’ll channel my inner Elton John!”
Now, there’s a squirrel for you!
Fun time at Hop’s Bounce House
Whooppee!
Ellie got her crawl on at Mighty Munchkins Play Zone.
Yeah, it took me a while to warm up to these ball things, but once I did…!
Nothing better than a little pizza lunch after a hard day at the”office”. 
Now I got my electric hair goin’!
Yeehawwwwwww! 

Since we were here during Halloween, Hailey helped me carve up a Jack-o’-Lantern for their porch. The town of Atascadero does a nice Halloween night event by closing off Entrada Av. to traffic and the local businesses set up trick-or-treat venues (their actual shop or a booth) for the kids to do trick-or-treating. We accompanied Hailey & Ellie (oh yeah, mommy & daddy too) as they did the deed and scored buckets full of treats.

C’mon you growed ups, let’s hit it!
Ready to rumble at the downtown trick-or-treat fest.
Hailey & Opa’s porch creation, daytime…
…and at night!
Some of the shops decorated themselves.
Ellie out scoring treats… 
Quite a crowd on Entrada Av.
Trick-or-treat!
Ellie wasn’t too sure about the folks at the AT &T booth…

So a while back Chad got us hooked into a beer app called “Untappd” (sic). It keeps track of your favorite beers, lets you rate beers, compare your ratings to a global average, in other words all things beer. Chad informed us of a possible gold mine for craft beers called “The Backroom” in Solvang, CA. On one of our “non-grandchild” days we loaded Woodrow Wilson up and did a roadtrip to Solvang to find The Backroom. It is just a little hole-in-the-wall, small beer store up front, a home brewers equipment store downstairs, and the taproom in the back, behind a painted fake bookcase used as the door. We scored a couple of craft brews to take home and sample with Chad, had a nice pizza lunch from Solvang Brewery Co., and tasted a couple of offerings from The Backroom. A visit to Solvang would be incomplete without a short walk around the scenic Danish themed town.

A look at some of the downtown theme in Solvang, CA.
More downtown…
Some of the porter/stout offerings at The Backroom.
More porter/stout offerings…
Some of the other styles of craft beer at The Backroom.
OK, Chad. You’d better be ready to drink some beer, these are coming your way!
Tap list for The Backroom 
Tap list continued 
The fake bookcase/door to the taproom at The Backroom.

Chad has a particular favorite brewery in Monterey, “Alvarado St. Brewing”, that he had been meaning to check out. We made it happen in a mini-adventure for Hailey and her dad. We loaded both of them up and drove Rosie down to stay at the Moss Landing KOA. While there we visited several of the local craft breweries, including Alvarado St., and spent some top-quality time at the beach chasing waves and seal-watching for Hailey. Included in this fun package was a couple of hours at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Hailey was in hog-heaven.

Inside Alvarado St. Brewing, a happening place.
Alvarado St. Brewing is definitely pet-friendly.
Early XMAS decorations on the Boardwalk.
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, still busy in November… 
“Nothin’ better than Dippin’ Dots on the Boardwalk…”
“…well, OK, maybe a good ol’ churro can rival those Dippin’ Dots!”
Just me and the monkey-lookin’ surfer dude…
The beach area just off the Boardwalk.
Hailey and Daddy gauging the waves…
Too cool for school!
We saw lots of ocean visitors.
Hey, is that Lou Seal?!
Dive bombing pelicans, riding the waves..
Chasing them waves can be exhausting!

So that catches you up to date. Time to start getting ready for Thanksgiving, hope you all have some good quality family time and pleasant gastric experiences! Until next post…

Cheers!