Our first stop...Solvang, a cozy little Danish town about an hour north of Santa Barbara with a whole bunch of windmills. The Danish LOVE windmills.
We stopped at Paula's Pancake House for a bite to eat...Nancy was very excited about her Swedish Pancakes.
You're probably thinking "don't you mean Danish pancakes??" Well technically yes she did order Danish pancakes, but turned them Swedish by adding butter and lemon. Her pancakes were fantastic, can't say the same for my burger...but that's what I get for ordering a burger from a place famous for their pancakes.
Then we walked around Solvang for a bit and checked out all the shops and boutiques...Nancy had a few calls to make...
We then wandered into a random parking lot only to find the Santa Inez Mission! This was very exciting because Nancy's 4th grade project was to build a mission...and guess which mission she built...yup...this one right here.
We then continued north through San Luis Obispo, all the way to Morro Bay. Morro Bay, from what we could gather, is a tiny little town with a very large rock.
We first drove to the Montana de Oro State Park because we were told it has amazing views of said big rock. And it did.
We then headed to our final stop for the night, San Simeon, home of the Hearst Castle. There wasn't much to this little town, one stop sign and a massive castle, so we backtracked one mile south to Cambria for dinner.
And there we stumbled upon...paradise.
So after dinner, we walked along the beach and enjoyed this gorgeous sunset.
My strong lungs and I cleared the path for us.
We're baffled as to how nobody knows about this place. It's amazing, the pictures don't do it justice. Sadly, the sun went down, and it was time for us to call it a night. So we checked into the Morgan Hotel, which is named after Julia Morgan, the Hearst Castle architect, and were looking forward to seeing the castle the next morning.
On Tuesday, we got up early and made our way 5 miles north to the Hearst Castle...I immediately got nervous when I saw the full parking lot, realizing that our decision to not make a reservation may not have been a good one. We walked in to the ticket area and saw that the next tours were not until noon...which was the time we were set to be in Big Sur. Uh oh. So we walked up to the ticket booth and asked just to make sure and we were told that the tours sell out really quickly and the next one was at noon. Tim, also known as the nicest park ranger on the planet, must have seen the heart break in my eyes, and whispered to us "You know what, I think I can squeeze you onto the 9:40 tour." We love Park Ranger Tim. So we got our tickets and boarded the bus that would take us up to the castle. I would have a picture but after 15 attempts to shoot the castle from the moving bus, let's just say it didn't work out.
The castle was built about 70ish years ago, depending on if you go by when it was started or when it was completed 30 years later. They just kept adding and adding, and this thing is enormous. Apparently, Hearst's dad would take him camping in the late 1800s on that mountain, and it was so close to his heart that he decided to build a home in the exact location that they would camp. It's worth mentioning that Hearst also had the 450,000 acres surrounding the castle. Yes, that's 450,000. Acres.
So after taking all that in, we continued north towards Big Sur.
Once we got up in the mountains, it started pouring rain, and soon we were in Big Sur where we stopped at a cute little cafe and had some lunch and fantastic coffee. We actually didn't take any pictures of Big Sur because we were trying to find the large rock. There is actually no large rock. The reason we were looking for the large rock was because we couldn't quite figure out why this 1 square mile town was famous. It's pretty much the only city on Highway 1 were you CANNOT see the ocean...so to us, it just wasn't all that great. So we moved on scratching our heads. Maybe we're crazy...Did we miss something?
So we headed to our final destination, Carmel. Our first stop...the Carmel Mission. I promised my aunt we would stop and light a few candles.
And then it was on to Carmel-by-the-Sea. This city is so awesome that they don't even use addresses. People name their houses and go by the intersections. We tried to figure out what our house would be named if we lived there and with Jamie's help, we came up with Casa de Solowad. We'd have a little Spanish home near Ocean Ave.
We checked into the Carmel Village Inn then headed to an Italian Bistro on Ocean Ave for dinner. After that, we rushed back to the hotel for the Biggest Loser Finale. Well I did...Nancy followed me...which was fine because everything in Carmel closes at 6.
The next morning we decided to take the 17 Mile Drive, a breathtaking drive through Pebble Beach.
Nancy even made a little friend...
And then we headed to our final stop for lunch...Cannery Row.
And after a wonderful 3 days on the road and a million pictures, it was time to head back home.
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