Moving on....

so today (7th Sept) we have left Santa Barbara behind and headed on up the coast to get further into our adventure!
As the hire car company provided sat nav has now decided to break (and the local office was closed for Labor Day) we decided to go old school and actually use maps, guide books and the road signs to get to where we wanted!  I was really quite happy that we were doing it 'properly'!

End destination for the day is San Luis Opisbo. Dan's been really keen to go here.

We headed for Solvang first which is a Danish town right on the edge of the wine regions..
We passed through some kind of strange little places on the way and it felt like a total world away from modern and trendy Santa Barbara...
I mean, I don't really expect to see massive signs telling me that Buellton is the home of split pea soup but not far from that there was one offering pigs for sale.  Is that just me?
(Oh and later on from Solvang we found 'Ostrich Land'!!)
 ... I digress again so Solvang, Danish town....
Yes, I did say Danish. It's kind of bizarre but when you know why it sort of makes sense and of course it is a real tourist destination now.  Ultimately it was the plan of some Danish immigrants back in the day, to get land purchased and create a new town for other Danish immigrants including businesses, homes, schools etc.
We didn't really stay long - though we managed to find time to visit the Christmas shop, where its Christmas all year round!  It was just random really but we bought a nice little bit of tat for the boy ;-)

Moving on from there we went to a delightful little town called Los Olivos. Literally just a crossroads with stores, a cafe (we had a fabulous lunch in there) and lots and lots of the local vineyards wine tasting places!  As I was driving I couldn't get stuck in and as Dan's first love is beer and he managed to find a beer tasting place, we headed in there.

From there we set off to San Luis Opisbo using just our wits and the guide book and hoped to find ourselves a decent hotel in the right area for where Dan wanted to see.
Which we did which is why I am able to write this updated!!
Its a cracking little motel.. like a proper motel where you drive up and park outside the room. Lovely big room, great location and a bloody amazing shower!!

So.. time to head out and explore SLO.....!