A Miniature Denmark & A Giant Rock
Trip Start
Jul 08, 2009
1
3
7
Trip End
Jul 18, 2009
Morro Bay, California
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Besides the style of the buildings, everything there seems related to Denmark. Plenty of places have titles involving "Hamlet", there are Danish bakeries galore (we split eclairs at "Mortensen's Danish Bakery"), the streets have names like "Copenhagen", I spotted a few windmills, and every aspect of the place is intricately detailed. It's very cute and very different from what else I've seen of California so far, but I find it hard to imagine anyone actually living there. There's just an element of "fake" or surrealisim to it, although perhaps that was just a perception of mine.
Just outside of Solvang is the Franciscan mission, the Old Mission Santa Inés. It's a beautiful building that reminded me a bit of the Mexican houses from the American Girl Josefina books. It is also situated on a hill with a tremendous view. The garden had a very creative stations of the cross, and I liked walking around in there. The bloodstains on the crosses were perhaps a bit morbid but also drove the point home - no pun intended.
The rest of the day was spent driving through vineyard country, which looked very green compared to the ever-present yellow grass framing the rows. We reached Morro Bay towards evening and found our hotel, which has very many exotic-looking flowers in the window boxes. We walked down to the docks to find a place for dinner, the giant Morro Rock shadowed by the setting sun. It was nearly impossible to get a photo of and even more impossible to look at. It's huge, and sits out in the water. Mom said it's a volcanic rock and is part of a series of them along this part of the coast.
We chose the Harbor Hut Restaurant for dinner. They gave us a table right by the windows, and we could see otters out in the harbor and a heron perched on a boat. We ordered oysters and noticed they had New England Clam Chowder. The waitress said it was delicious, and we trusted her. Mom, Sam, and I all ordered it, and when it arrived she brought a smaller cup for Dad, too. It was hilarious - a thick sludge that the spoon could stick straight up in! It was tough to eat, but we did our best.
After sitting for so long that day, Dad and I went for a walk while waiting for the meal. Morro Bay is rather industrial and not very pretty, but impressive due to the massive rock overshadowing everything. Dinner came. One of the dishes came with this simply humongous spoon to eat it with - rather impractical, and it bothered Mom so much that Dad asked to buy one from the restaurant. The just gave it to him, and he's going to surprise her with it one dinner at home XD I got a spaghetti dish that was decent but my throat wasn't feeling particularly great (although my strep culture DID come back negative).
Dinner finished, we walked out past the three giant smokestacks and out to the base of Morro Rock. It was extremely dark and there were some cars parked in isolated areas so we didn't venture far. But looking back on the town was nice, until the fog rolled in, and rolled in very quickly. Dad found some pillars, and being the crazy person he is, decided to balance on them. I tried too, but my balance it terrible.
After such a long day, it will be very easy to fall asleep. We've got many more long days ahead of us!
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