As
you may remember, Mr. C and I spent our 7th anniversary car
shopping. While that experience
was super fun, we decided to plan a real weekend getaway to California during
spring break as our first non-family related trip in quite awhile. I’ve been super indecisive lately and
two weeks before we were set to leave we hadn’t booked anything or even decided
on a price. We ended up booking a
B & B in Santa Barbara at 11:30 on a Wednesday night. I had done a little research and gotten
some suggestions, but I really didn’t have a clue what we were going to
do. I am a planner so this was all
very unlike me, but it was amazing.
We
took off for our trip without much more info that the evening we booked the B
& B. I drove for most of the
morning while Mr. C napped a bit.
I can’t even begin to explain how much I love road trips. My very favorite moments are the ones
early in the morning or late at night when traffic is light, Mr. C is usually
asleep, and I feel like I’m one of the only people experiencing the moment and
seeing that beautiful sight at that very moment. My moment this trip was in the morning when the mountains
were breaking through the low clouds to my left and to the right the sun was
lighting up the sky. The road
curved just as my favorite song came on and suddenly the low clouds broke
enough for me to see the mountains and landscape in the valley below. It was the perfect start to our weekend
getaway.
We
had a bit of an incident in Indio when the gas didn’t shut off, sprayed all
over my car, my pants, and our shoes, and we ended up detouring to a gas
station and Target. We decided to
just eat in Pasadena since neither of us thought we could hold out another two
hours. Mr. C found us a super
fancy restaurant we weren’t feeling and we ended up going next door to Four
Cafe. The food was amazing, the
staff was super friendly, and it was so nice to have a relaxing lunch outside.
After
lunch we continued to Solvang, a Dutch town suggested by Mr. C’s cousin. I don’t realize how much I miss the
masses of greenness until we travel and I see these masses. The drive from Santa Barbara to Solvang
was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen. As we drove through the mountains we were overwhelmed with
so many shades of green. After
about 10 minutes I declared that this was my new lottery location. You better believe that if we win the
jackpot this is where I’ll be. We
finally made it to Solvang where we were greeted with little shops, bakeries, and
some of the prettiest picket-white-fence houses you’ve ever seen. We got some ice cream and walked around
checking out the shops. Ice cream
in the middle of the day says to me -“I’m on vacation and I can do whatever I
want”.
The
bed and breakfast we stayed at included a couple converted houses nestled in
the kind of neighborhood everyone dreams of. The smell of fresh lilies (one of my all time favorite
smells) hit us as we walked into the house. Every evening the B & B serves wine and snacks from 5-6
and we made it just in time. We
ate a bit, settled into our room, and headed out to walk to dinner. One of the reasons we picked this B
& B (aside from all the included food) was because of it’s location to
State Street, an area with a bunch of unique shops and restaurants, and the
beach.
Apparently the phrase “within walking distance” means something different to everyone. Walking 2 miles to the beach and then back doesn’t really scream “walking distance” to me, especially if you plan to haul along some towels. We got in plenty of steps each day though and being able to walk to dinner was pretty amazing.
Stay tuned for part 2!
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