Sunday PM

We checked back into the lodge and then decided to go down to the Seaport Village area of San Diego. It was a quaint little place but touristy. Mainly little shops and restaurants. The shops did have some different stuff than we had seen so that was interesting. We ate at a Greek restaurant and then went over to the USS Midway where they had a memorial that I loved of the classic photo of the sailor kissing the nurse in NYC. We then headed back to the lodge and crashed. Back to work on Monday and we will probably go to La Jolla Monday night to an Italian restaurant that has been recommended to us. See you all on Wednesday!

Sunday. part 1

We found a great little hotel near San Simeon. It was "ocean view" by that it means you could see the ocean out the window :-) But, it was clean and it was half the price as the night before so we were happy. We went quite a ways up the coast on Saturday probably about 12 miles away from where the PCH was closed due to the fires. We turned around and drove back, the north to south drive is much prettier. We decided to stop in San Simeon and hoped that we could find a room for under $300. We did and were quite happy. We went to a little mini mart to get snacks for the room and while we were there this dog walks into the store and starts snooping around on the shelves. It was a golden lab puppy (not really young, probably about 9 or 10 months), I thought he was with this guy who had come in at the same time. All the sudden I look down and this dog is eating the Little Debbie snack cakes right off the shelf - plastic and all and nobody is doing anything. Apparently it wasn't the guy's dog it was just the neighborhood dog. I said something to the clerk and she says "Oh no" really calm-like, like "not that again!" it was really funny. They are really dog friendly around here everyone has their dogs with them. We got up pretty early on Sunday and headed back south. We drove through some beautiful mountains as we headed east to catch the I-5. We decided to take the interstate back since it is faster. This brought us right through Los Angeles. Traffic wasn't bad but it is such a big area that it took over an hour to get through. We got on the south side of LA and ate at an In and Out Burger. It was good, but not worth the hype I've always heard.

Elephant Seals

Elephant Seals and Ground squirrels

Our favorite thing that we did on Saturday which was the day that we drove more north up the coast was the elephant seals. As we were driving we came upon a lookout that had elephant seals. Apparently they go there every summer and we got lucky and happened to come through at a time when they were all up on the beach sunning themselves. They were so cool. When we first got there we saw these squirrel like things that were kind of cute, people were feeding them and I took a picture and we went on to where the seals were. Well, I had to go back to the car to get another CF card and those cute little squirrels all of a sudden looked and acted more like mice to me. They were scampering everywhere, one almost over my foot! It was awful. Of course Dad was laughing at me but it absolutely was NOT funny! I knew they wouldn't hurt me, they were just so random that I didn't know what they were going to do next! They live in the ground and the picture of the one shows his little hole that he lives in.

On our way

We headed out to Solvang pretty early after having breakfast at the hotel. We were told about a scenic route through the mountains. It was beautiful and we stopped at Lake Cachuma and took some pictures.

Solvang, CA

We got to Solvang and it was a little different than I thought. We were told it was a dutch town and I guess it was but it seemed like it was more "dutch" for the tourists than it was really "Dutch". If that makes sense. It had a windmill and some of the buildings looked "dutchy" but it was really a tourist place. But, we enjoyed walking around and checking out the shops. Didn't enjoy getting pushed around by Asian tourists but what can you do?

The stone cat is carved from jade - beautiful! We ate lunch at Tower Pizza - really good, we ate outside and it was set back away from the crowds.