Adventure Time

After Christmas is over, like the very next day, I no longer want to be in my house. The clutter of new toys and boxes and torn paper starts to get to me and I want to go somewhere; do something. This year we decided to drive up the coast, the Pacific one, and spend the night in Cayucos. It's one of my favorite surf towns in California. It's got tiny motels and sea shanty themed restaurants and a very pretty beach and pier.  

We drove into town about 4 o'clock and rushed from our motel room to the beach to take advantage of the sunset. The boys told me the water was too cold for them, but after about 20 minutes they were both so soaked we had to find a restaurant with outdoor seating.

Also in Cayucos, is the Brown Butter Cookie Company. It is impossible to walk by without turning on your heel and walking inside for a sample. They taste exactly as good as you'd think, like light, crumbly brown sugar happiness. And they make the whole town smell delicious. Salty, sugary, buttery air, it's like what Jesus smells like.

The next day we drove to Sacramento, we passed a couple of missions and day dreamed about our Central Coast farmstead. I love these kind of vacations, where the journey is part of the trip. We drive slowly and stop when we want, we take pictures and find new places to buy sandwiches.

All the while California is unfurling before our very eyes, shouts of, "Are we there yet?!" and "Why is it so far?!" and the strains of Adventure Time's Tree Trunks episode for the 14th time are creeping into my daydreams. Gone is my alpaca farm and my organic garden, now I'm just looking for a place for Hartwell to pee or an empty bottle for him to use when farms stretch out between towns.

These photos will help me forget all the crazy, though, and by next year I'll be ready to do it again. This time I'm bringing Depends and picking the dvds.

YOU need a craze-cation!

For John's birthday we went on a crazy, last-minute vacation. We drove up to Refugio Beach, which is north of Santa Barbara, for a crazy picnic and some fishing. 

Waaay before kids John and I would take Barkley up to Malibu really early in the morning. He would kayak, (John not Barkley. Basset hounds can't swim!) and I would sit on the beach and read terrible magazines. Then he'd come back and we'd cook out sausages and eat homemade pasta salads and cake. Pineapple upside-down cake, to be specific. 

Usually, because we were so early, it was overcast and sometimes drizzling. So it became Crazy Picnic. Because anyone else would just stay home.

Back to the latest Crazy Picnic, we arrived at the beach around 9 and it was capital "c" Cold! Some kind of freak storm must've been pushing through because it's early September and we were freezing!

To warm up, John helped the boys build a river from the stream to the ocean:

Then he went fishing for a while and we sat at the picnic table and had snacks and shivered.

Bee was the coldest:

After sausages and chocolate cake, we drove to our hotel. The only available room in the area was in Lompoc. What to say about Lompoc? There are a lot of murals. Their downtown area is probably pretty nice when things are open. John coined it Radiator Springs. I think it needs a little love.

We ate at the China Bowl, which has been around since 1946.

It was pretty amazing. Food not too shabby for the middle of nowhere. We actually over ordered and still paid under $40. Mostly I liked the decor and colors. Here is a fountain-ie shrine deal with a giant cherry tree:

Orange curved wall with pink rook tiles? Thank you.

Our most favorite thing was the jukebox. It had Patsy Cline, Rod Stewart and Sisco. Because nothing says "Chinese food," like the Thong Song. Hartwell had fun picking songs and even found fifty cents in the coin return! Yay for free songs! 

I know you want to know how you get $7 of free food. If you spend $40, you get eggroll. We fell for it. Deliciously.

We returned to the hotel and the boys swan while I nearly passed out in the amazing bed while watching Tom Hanks chase Ewan McGregor. That thing was like mama bear's bed. A little too soft, but also just right.

The next morning we went to breakfast in Solvang. Danish pancakes and sausages. 

I went to a Christmas store and bought some Russian ornaments, hung out in a used bookstore, and found a delicious craft store full of dreams!

Oh, and this happened:

and this:

 

"Would you like a glitter tattoo?"

"Yes."

"What would you like? A skull?"

"Yes! Wait. A rose! A rose!"

"What colors do you like?"

"Pink and purple. And red!"

The lady never asked us. We just sort of sat while the kids were made beautiful.  It made them so happy. 

After that, lunch and aebelskiver. I went native and had a crazy danish open faced sandwich, which I knew would be the thing my Norwegian dad would have ordered.

Then we drove home. Hartwell kept saying stuff like, "Next time we stay at that hotel..."
I think Lompoc is a one time town, sorry Hartwell. But it did remind me of how much fun we would have if we vacationed up the coast with a little trailer. All the awesome California towns with crazy restaurants waiting for spider man and Lydia, the tattooed Hartwell.