California Dreamin', part one

This year for our summer vacation we decided to take a trip to southern California. Edie had visited Solvang, California, several years ago and decided that it might be a place we'd like to see. Solvang is a small Dutch community that attracts lots of tourists and offers a variety of choices in Dutch shopping and pastries - two of our favorite things.

We stayed at a hotel in Goleta, California (by Santa Barbara), and drove the thirty minutes to Solvang. The drive was beautiful as we drove on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Below are some pictures we took with a cell phone:

We were so busy shopping that we forgot to take pictures of Solvang, but here's the link to a visitor's site. http://cityofsolvang.com/

Traffic in southern California is worse than a nightmare. At least you can wake up from a nightmare. It seems like there is never a good time of day, or a good day of the week, to drive the L.A. freeways. It's always bumper to bumper with periods of completely stopping and sitting on the freeway.

We've driven across country and back. We've driven through the rush hour downtown traffic of Philadelphia. We've driven the narrow and hectic streets of Washington, D.C. None of it compares to the absolute chaos of the L.A. freeway. If we ever return to Solvang, we're going through Bakersfield and sneaking in the back way. Future trips to southern California will be limited to Disneyland.

We asked one of the Solvang store owners how long he had lived there. He said that he had been there for about 28 years. He had lived in L.A. prior to moving to Solvang, but one day it took him 5 -1/2 hours in L.A. traffic to get home from work. And thus started his quest to leave L.A. It took three years, but he got out.