Solvang and Earthquake

For the thirteen years that Beth and I have been married, and especially the ten years since I moved back to California, I wanted to go to Solvang.It was one of those places that I remember going to when I was a child. I especially remember the pastries and danish sausage.I also remember thinking how I associated this place to Danny Kaye and the Inch Worm song.


So on a trip to Southern Cal, we decided to go down 101 and stay in Solvang.
It is kind of funny how you build up a place visited as a child in your mind. And I saw it in the kids. We went into the shops, checked out the cuckoo clocks, and we ate at the Red Viking.My parents have a slide of when I was three standing in this phone booth with my dad's Uncle Roy and Aunt Eda. I thought it was neat to take a picture of the kids in the same place.

We had lunch at the Red Viking Restaurant. I had the Danish Sausage with red cabbage. Myles had the same; however, did not care for it. We also ordered aebleskivers with the raspberry sauce. Kids weren't impressed, and I can't say I was either.

The bakeries were packed with lines out the door. So we passed them up. And truthfully, bakeries really don't interest us like they used to. What is most important is that the kids really enjoyed themselves.

The funnest part of the stay in Solvang though was that we stayed at the Split Pea Andersen Inn. It was here where we were in the swimming pool when the 7.1 earthquake occurred 200 miles away on the Mexican border.

I had always wondered what it would feel like if I was in a swimming pool when an earthquake happened and now I can! Mind you, the people standing next to the pool didn't feel anything. In fact, the manager was outside watering the plants and I had asked her if she felt an earthquake and to look at the pool. She went inside to see if there was anything on the news and found out about the earthquake. It was pretty exciting though.

In the end, while I think I built Solvang bigger in my mind than it actually is. However now our kids can now have the same kind of memory as I did as a kid.