After spending the day yesterday walking around the park and investigating what they have going on, today we headed north to Solvang. We have visited Solvang previously but it was raining so badly that we spent literally one minute on the sidewalk before bundling back into the car and getting out of town. There was rain forecast for today but just showers so we decided to risk it. It’s about 25 miles from the park, past Lake Cachuma and then over towards the coast, so it was a nice drive. Solvang is a cool town, Danish in heritage with lots of traditional architecture, customs, and pastries; the name means ‘sunny fields’. We spent a few hours wandering around checking out the buildings and the little stores along every street. We did get caught in a shower or two, in between getting up close and personal with Hans, and having really crusty panninis for lunch. I know, not really very Danish, but meatballs, sausage, and salted fish are never on my menu; we did go Danish though at one of the abundance of pastry shops, yummy.

 Mike: Yummy Danish pastries!