California Roadtrip - Day 5

July 25, 2012

We woke up in our tent (thanks to Skye) in Buellton frozen, but alive.  It got SO clod over the night.  We knew it was going to be cold, but not THAT cold.  It was freezing.  And there were some drunk German guys across from us awake at 4 a.m.  They didn’t really keep us awake, I just know they were awake that long because I had to get up and go to the bathroom.  But in the morning, there were Bud Weiser cans EVERYWHERE and I guess they got in trouble and had to clean it all up…oops.  Other than that, I was very impressed by the camp site.  They had a pool, showers, vending machines, laundry facilities…it was the nicest place we have stayed at yet.  No joke!  It was a fun, first camping experience with Mark, and I am glad that we camped.  It was fun and saved a ton of money!

After we packed up, we drove about 5 minutes to a little Danish town called Solvang and enjoyed desert for breakfast at a cute little bakery.  The lady working there was SO cute!  Mark said, “Do you have some of those with raspberry fillings in them?”  The lady working there replied in a very thick accent, “You want raspberry, I get you raspberry.”  It was funny.  Mark said that a lot of people in Germany have that sense of humor.  I would love it there.  

We enjoyed some delicious baked goods and some hot chocolate, and walked around the main street in Solvang.  I think we went into every single bakery store because Mark was looking some of the things they had in Germany, but couldn’t find many.  He said that a lot of the food had been Americanized and was a little disappointed…but it was still fun!  We even found a map that he could show me where he served his mission.  

The entire city was lined with really neat boutiques, restaurants, wine tastings, and yummy bakeries.  If you are ever in the area, you should really stop through Solvang.  It is such a neat and cute little town and I thought of my mom the whole time.  She would have loved it there!

After Solvang we went down to Santa Barbara, only to find that our car needed to be fixed.  We (mostly I) panicked at first, but then figured out it was a fuse that could be fixed easily.  The main problem was that both of our phones were about to be dead, the fuse was broken that we needed to charge our phones through the cigarette lighter in the car, and we didn’t know where we were going.  After a lot of driving around Santa Barbara, we finally found an AutoZone and Mark quickly fixed the fuse.  We were hoping to walk along the coast of Santa Barbara, but unfortunately ran out of time.  We did drive by the Santa Barbara Police Department, and it wasn’t the same one that they show in Psych.  I was really disappointed.  On we went to LA!  The streets on our way had some really cool names, like these ones:

 Okay, maybe not THAT cool, but I liked them.  We drove through Malibu and it’s gorgeous, long, big beaches.  They didn’t seem too busy, but maybe it was because they were so big.  There were some big houses there and a beautiful view.  We drove down about another 30 minutes to the Santa Monica Pier.  

We decided to get out and ride the Ferris Wheel and just look out at the ocean for a bit.  

It was a nice stop and I am really glad that we stopped there…until I got a huge piece of wood stuck in my foot.  I was just walking and a piece of wood about a yard long (not exaggerating) from the pier floor was stuck in my foot.  The sharp part got into the skin pretty good on the ball of my foot right under my big toe.  It started to bleed pretty good not long after Mark got the wood out of my foot, and it REALLY started to hurt.  We went back to the car, cleaned it up, put a band-aid on it, and got on the highway again to see LA.  I forgot about the cut in my foot for a while, until I tried to walk on it again.  Not much fun, but I’ll get over it. Traffic in LA…holy moly.  People aren’t exaggerating when they talk about the traffic in LA.  It took us 40 minutes to get 3 miles.  I am not even kidding you.  We timed it.  During all of the traffic, we even passed the LA temple, and we almost missed it!!!

Eventually, we got to Rodeo Drive, checked out the amazing shops there that I would feel so out of place in if I walked in there, and headed up to Canyon Drive to see the Hollywood sign.  

After tons of twists and turns, we FINALLY made it to a perfect view of the sign and a view of the city.  From there, we drove down about 11 minutes to Hollywood Blvd. to see the “Walk of Fame”. 

We didn’t get out, and I am very glad that we didn’t.  It’s not in a good part of town, which I was aware of before we went thanks to my friend Courtney, and it isn’t anything spectacular.  It was so dirty along the street.  So many different bars, tattoo parlors, strip clubs, and liquor stores.  Blegh.  I’m glad we just stayed in the car…with the windows rolled up.  I saw 3 names on the stars, one of them being Lucille Ball, so that was pretty neat.  That was really all that I needed to see.  Now I can check that off of my bucket list.  We were going to go to Laguna Beach after that, but by that time it was 7:30 and driving to Laguna would be another hour and a half, so we just decided to head to our Spa Hotel in Palm Springs.  We got this hotel thanks to a Groupon.  It was $78 for 1 night, $25 spa credit, and 2 free 30 minute massages.  The hotel we were going to get in LA was about that much anyway, so we said why not and I am grateful that we did decide to take the groupon and stay here.  It is SO nice here, and the people here are extremely nice.  We probably won’t use any of the spa credit, but hey we’ll take a very nice hotel/spa and 2 free massages for that much.  I’m in!  I am getting spoiled tonight and tomorrow morning, but I think we deserve one night of spoilage this trip.  Tomorrow night we will be in San Diego!  So much more fun awaits us and I can’t wait to see what San Diego is like!