Meet the Mr. and Mrs!: Anniversary Trip Day 1: Solvang and Morro Bay

I've been putting off blogging about our trip because...honestly, going through nearly 600 pictures is overwhelming. But, I'm over it. Here we go!

We began our wonderful trip up the coast by driving to Solvang. Neither of us had ever been there before, which is funny, because I only found out last month that it's less than an hour from where I grew up. What a cute little place! We asked lots of friends before we left about places we shouldn't miss while on our trip, and many of them said we had to go to Paula's Pancake House. So we got to Solvang in time to go there for brunch :-)

We were a little surprised, though, that as we drove into Solvang, we saw lots of people dressed up like this:

Since when is red lingerie suitable cyclist attire? Especially when the majority of them are male cyclists?

Turns out, there was an AIDS LifeCycle June 5-11th from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We were thankful that we were going exactly the opposite route (Los Angeles to Solvang, Morro Bay, Hearst Castle, Monterey, San Francisco, Napa, Big Sur, LA). Otherwise, we probably would have had these guys in ALL of our vacation photos! As you can see in the rest of our pictures from Solvang, they were everywhere.

We were excited to get to go to Paula's Pancake House! It lives up to its legendary status :-)

So cute with the pretty patio and little umbrellas...just an adorable little place!

We enjoyed some amazing pancakes, as well as eggs, fruit, swedish sausage, and biscuits. Yum!

We began a tradition last year of buying Christmas ornaments on our anniversary trip, so we were set on finding some on this trip, too. We were so excited to find an entire Christmas shop there! Now we'll remember our fun times on our second anniversary trip each Christmas as we put up our tree.

I still got my craft fix --even on vacation!

This is such a cute little store...owned by the sweetest lady!

Jesse was very excited for find a family heraldry store. We bought him a proper Brubaker stein (should be arriving any day) and had a lot of fun learning family history from the lady who works there

For example, we didn't realize that although Brubaker is a common German name, it originated in Switzerland.

There we are!

Jesse's Superman impersonation

There were about 50 of these guys all over Solvang. It seriously felt like they outnumbered the rest of the tourists!

We liked the windmill :-)

And this beautiful dolpin bench and fountain

The afternoon was the perfect time for a raspberry gelato and a chocolate milkshake :-)

I love all of the cute little shops!

blond braids and cowgirl boots.

What a day for Jesse to wear red!

Cute little wishing well

Everything is just so pretty

Even the public restrooms!

"Hey there, Hans!"

Farewell, Solvang!

Back on the road...Morro Bay, here we come!

(I have rotated this pic so many times...it's destined to be sideways, apparently.)

Pretty flower fields along our drive

Our tent site was perfect! We were right on the edge of the campground, with the moor to our left, and the bay to our right. The harbor was right in the middle. It was gorgeous!

This was our first chance to get to use our beautiful new tent, an anniversary gift from Jesse's mom. It's so wonderful to have one of our own instead of needing to borrow from someone else! Hopefully, this is the beginning of many memorable trips with our great little tent.