Tag: California

Early Holiday Run to Solvang

“Let’s go to Solvang this weekend,” my Danish friend said.

“Why?”

“Cause it is fun and I miss all the Danish stuff this time of year.”

“In Solvang? It is a tourist trap!”

“No, it will be fun. Plus it is all based on real Danish traditions and foods. I want to go. Come on!”

So reluctantly I set off with my friend to see Solvang, a small California town about 30 miles above Santa Barbara just off the 101 Freeway at Buellton, CA. At Buellton, you take California 246 and soon you will arrive in the quaint semi-Danish village of Solvang. The town was founded in 1911 by a group of Danish settlers who were looking to establish a Danish school and community on the West Coast.

A LITTLE HISTORY

3 Founders of Solvang carved in wood.

Between 1850 and 1930, a considerable number of Danes left Denmark, which was suffering from poor economic prospects. According to some estimates, as many as one in ten Danes emigrated during this period, mostly to the United States.

The name Solvang means “sunny field” in Danish, and the original band of settlers bought almost 9,000 acres of the Rancho San Carlos de Jonata Mexican land grant. The city is home to a number of bakeries, restaurants, and merchants offering a taste of Denmark in California. The architecture of many of the facades and buildings reflects a traditional Danish style. There is a copy of the famous Little Mermaid statue from Copenhagen, as well as one featuring the bust of famed Danish fable writer Hans Christian Andersen. A replica of Copenhagen’s Round Tower or Rundetårn in the scale 1:3 was finished in 1991 and can be seen in the town center. Much of the Oscar-winning film Sideways (2004) was filmed in Solvang and in nearby Buellton.

Solvang’s Clock Tower

Initially, most of Solvang’s buildings were built in the same style as other buildings in the area. The Lutheran church was the first to be based on Danish architecture and bears a close relationship to Danish equivalents. But after World War II, interest grew in the concept of a “Danish Village”. The pioneer of the Danish Provincial style, as it came to be known, was undoubtedly Ferdinand Sorensen, originally from Nebraska. In the mid-1940s, after returning to Solvang from a trip to Denmark, he first completed Møllebakken, his Danish-styled home, and then went on to build the first of the village’s four windmills. A little later, a local architect, gave the older buildings a new look, adding façades in so-called “Danish Provincial” style. Buildings in the half-timbered style of Danish rural houses proliferated, creating a new tourist attraction.

One of Solvang’s four Windmills.

Thanks in large part to its unique half-timbered architecture, Solvang has become a major California tourist attraction, with over one million visitors per year. In particular, today’s visitors appreciate the Danish windmills, the statues of Hans Christian Andersen and the Little Mermaid, the half-timbered houses, the Danish rural church, the Round Tower as well as Danish music and folk dancing. In addition, several restaurants and pastry shops serve Danish specialties. A replica of a 19th-century Danish streetcar, the horse-drawn Hønen (“the hen”), takes visitors on sightseeing tours around downtown Solvang. Partly as a result of the 2004 film Sideways, which was set in the surrounding Santa Ynez Valley, the number of wine-related businesses in Solvang has increased appreciably, attracting oenophiles to the downtown area.

One of Solvang’s attractions is the 700-seat open-air Festival Theater, which was built in 1974 following the success of a makeshift performance of Hamlet in 1971 in the town park. The theatre is used here year round and especially in the summer by the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts located in Santa Maria. The style of the exterior is reminiscent of both Danish and Elizabethan architecture.

At night all the trees are lite giving the village a warm glow.

THE PRESENT

We drove into town about 2 PM on a cold but sunny Saturday, and the town was filled with people. Finding a parking place is not easy, but we managed to find one on a side street. Solvang has a small population (5000+) so it is easy to walk everywhere. Taking off on foot, my Danish friend was very excited to point out stores and items that were truly Danish.

A Viking Warrior carved in wood hoping to get his favorite wish of Christmas!

We stopped at one really Scandinavian type store with its clean lines and gleaming wood floor and tried on pairs of wooden clogs for men and women. Their big selling point is they help relieve pressure on your back when standing and correct your posture. Comfortable and at 70 dollars not too expensive. We found pairs in other stores in Solvang selling for as much as 150 dollars.

Traditional Danish Roast Beef sandwich

After cruising through lots of small stores, bakeries, and taking lots of pictures of Danish flags, we decided to get something to eat. We choose the Red Viking Restaurant which featured classic Danish food along with American dishes as well. Decorated in an old, rural Danish style with Royal Copenhagen plates hanging on every wall, the place was packed with tourists. My friend in spite of her desire to see all thing Danish that day only wanted a basic salad with chicken. It was up to me to really check out the Danish style food and see what if it was authentic or not. I choose a  Traditional Danish Roast Beef sandwich featuring thinly sliced medium rare Roast Beef with pickles, a dollop of horseradish, and a dollop of Remoulade on top. All of this was served open-faced on rugbrød! I washed this down with a local Danish Red Lager brewed locally by Figueroa Mountain Brewing, a brewery in Buellton.

Æbleskivers served at the Red Viking!

For dessert, I had an old Danish favorite called Æbleskivers. This is a Danish dessert pastry which is really Pancake dough that is deep-fried, covered with powered sugar and raspberry jam. A good meal.
More walking around the small village, more taking of photos, sampling some of the local Santa Ynez Valley wines in the seemingly endless tasting rooms, and some Danish style candies. As it was December and the sun was setting, we decided to head home earlier and get dinner on the road.

There is certainly a lot more to do in Solvang. There is the live theatre run by PCPA that was featuring a whole round of Christmas and holidays plays and pageants. Live music was just starting when we headed for the car and the village was covered with Christmas lights. Some of the local restaurants have excellent ratings for dinner so you could easily make a weekend of it if you wished.

Our Heroes in Solvang, CA.

A very nice and fun day in Solvang, and experiencing it with a real Dane makes all the difference in the world.  Highly recommend for a day trip within 3 hours from LA.

Enjoy!!

Rogue One Premiere – The Night Before

Los Angeles is a very famous city and the most famous part of LA is Hollywood. The Movies and their premieres are a huge business here in Tinseltown. Disney just blocked off Hollywood Blvd. and part of Cahuenga for a huge Hollywood premiere party, the opening of Rogue One, A Star Wars Story. Two streets are blocked off, there is a full size x-wing fighter in the middle of Hollywood Blvd., in front of the Pantages Theatre, and there are huge tents that cover an entire block of street for all the celebs to arrive and mingle with each other.

The Pantages is a 2700+ seat live theatre that Disney has rented and put in a state of the art projection and sound system.  And this is the holiday event of the Christmas season for Disney.

I was up on Hollywood Blvd. on Friday night and the photos that follow are what I saw. The party tents and the red carpet and the X-Wing Fighter take up two blocks on Hollywood Blvd.

They do everything big for the Movies in Hollywood.

May the Force be with you!

Doctor Strange – Journey into Philosophy

So a movie can be a trip or journey of the mind, and last night, I went to see a sneak preview of Dr. Strange, the newest Marvel movie from Disney. It was truly an amazing film on so many different levels. Yet, the most astonishing thing about the film was the deep philosophical bent that the movie had. Nothing amazingly profound, mostly every day statements that you can read on Facebook or hear your yoga practicing friend tell you over coffee/chai. But this is deep stuff for a comic book movie, and it gives the film characters footing as they go about their missions of good and evil.

Visually, the movie is stunning, and the acting matches the visual effects. The main cast of Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, and Mads Mikkelsen are excellent in their various roles which are not just typical good guys and bad guys. The story is deep and all the characters are interwoven in complex ways that make this much more than your basic Superhero movie. I will not bore you with the details of the plot except to say that it is worth your time and money.

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My connection to Marvel comics and films is long and personal. It started over 50 years ago when the oldest son of my father’s business partner gave his comic collection filled with DC and Marvel comics to me. I fell for the Marvel stories and humor and realistic life problems that those characters had much more than the black and white view of the world that DC seem to have. Plus I had most of the Silver Age comics in first editions. Hulk, Thor, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Captain America, Avengers and so many other characters were to become my friends and companions. I had problems focusing on reading so those comics got me reading – which is my great passion to this day. Because my family moved so many times when I was young, a shy kid in a new town turned to the escape and adventure that these heroes and stories offered.

I saved my comics for years. My collection was filled with premiere issues, and I kept them in pretty good shape. But my collection was not stored in plastic to never be read. Mine were constantly read and re-read, so they were in only fair condition. Yet, in a time of financial hardship, I was able to sell them and they provided me with the funds to survive for a couple of months.

Later, I would appear in a Marvel film as an actor. My lines and scene ended up on the cutting room floor as they say, but if you are quick and know where to look you will see half my face in a crowd scene for about one second. And even that little amount was a total thrill.

So I am biased for Marvel vs other comic franchises, but the proof is in the movies themselves. Marvel’s characters, no matter how far fetched they may seem, they still have real daily problems like how to pay the rent or problems at school. While DC comics and their characters never seemed like they changed clothes, went to the bathroom or had acne. Marvel had humor and depth, DC was bad/good, black/white with nothing in-between which led to boring most times.

That still plays out in the humor and interesting characters of Marvel films and the dark, depressing nature of the current slate of DC based films. It all goes back to the source material and a sense of real life (in a really made up world).

Go see Dr. Strange!! It will entertain you and maybe (just maybe) nudge you to think about something in your own life. You cannot ask more from a movie than that!

Museum of Jurassic Technology – Los Angeles

THIS IS A REPRINT OF AN ARTICLE FROM 2016. THE INFORMATION IS STILL CURRENT.

Los Angeles has a lot to offer a visitor. Sunshine, mountains, beaches, hiking, stars, world-class museums and some truly wonderful dining with up and coming new chefs. Yet, it is also one of the weirdest places on the planet. While the term “Film noir” was coined in France, the term describes films made in and around Los Angeles during the 1940’s. In LA, there is always a sense of pessimism and menace.

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Behind or under all that sunshine, there is a dark, troubling Los Angeles full of weird and sometimes dangerous things. This is also the city of corruption, the Black Dahlia, mad power grabs, famous unsolved murders, cults, and Charlie Manson.

This is also the city of strange, peculiar, and wondrously interesting people and places. Like the giant Randy’s Donut sign seen in so many movies about Los Angeles, the Watts Towers, or the Bronson Caves. One of the strangest yet most popular off-beat attractions in the City of Angeles is the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Located in Culver City, also the home of MGM and Sony Studios, the museum is located at 9341 Venice Boulevard in the Palms district of Los Angeles, California.

The museum itself seems to be a unique combination of interactive performance art and a provocative little haven of curiosities and rarities; scientific, historic and artistic in nature. Obscure exhibits feature everything from an extensive exhibit on a Soviet designer/engineer who influenced the Soviet space program but never actually made a rocket to folk curses and cures through the ages. Examples include “the restorative properties of urine” and “cures from eating mice.” Is it a parody or is it a witty homage to private museums of the 16th and 17th century or just some crazy collector’s obscure items that only they truly care about? Truth or fiction, myth or reality? You have to decide for yourself.

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TripAdvisor.com lists this as the #1 thing to do in Culver City, and it is sure worth the couple of hours you could take to wander through this warren’s den of small, dimly lit exhibits. The setting is very theatrical, mysterious and bizarre as you move from one unrelated exhibit to another. At some point you start to ask yourself where the joke is as you bump into an array of microscopes focused on tiny almost invisible arrangements made from butterfly wings and sculptures so tiny that they fit into the eye of a needle juxtaposed against a clearly made up exhibit of cheap items from junk shops called a “History of Trail Park Art”. Yet the exhibit is so painstakingly made with a history of the movement, models of trailers, several cases filled with plates and photos of supposed collections and in-depth histories of each of the collectors that you almost begin to believe that it is truly real.

The museum was founded by David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Drake Wilson (husband and wife) in 1988. Wilson won a MacArthur Foundation Award in 2001. The museum’s pamphlet itself states the museum is “an educational institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic.” The link to the term “Lower Jurassic” and how it pertains to the museum’s collections is left unexplained.20161030_160141

At the end of your tour on the top floor, there is a lovely little tea room which is included in the price of admission, where you can ponder your vague, disquieting visit or reflect on the challenging originality and dry humor of the place.

Street and free meter parking were pretty easy to find on a Sunday afternoon. Admission is a donation of $8.00 per adult (well worth it!) with varying discounted costs for other visitors. Uniquely stocked gift shop to peruse at the completion of your visit. No photos allowed and the staff is amazingly friendly. This is a very small and peculiarly offbeat museum and it is well worth the time to visit and wonder about its mysterious and confusing exhibits, and the apparent randomness of it all.

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Whitewater Rafting in Kernville

So after the day at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace, we woke up early and drove the 40+ miles to Kernville through some really beautiful country on California 178. At the town of Lake Isabelle, you turn on to California 155 that takes you up to Kernville.

The Kern River is a river in the state of California, approximately 165 miles (270 km) long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfield. Fed by snow melt near Mount Whitney, the river passes through scenic canyons in the mountains and is a popular destination for whitewater rafting and kayaking. It is the only major river in the Sierra Nevada mountain range that drains in a southerly direction. Nearly all of the river is publicly accessible. Its swift flow at low elevation makes the river below the reservoir an extremely popular location for rafting.

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The Kern is well-known for its danger, and is sometimes referred to as the “Killer Kern”. A sign at the mouth of Kern Canyon warns visitors: “Danger. Stay Out. Stay Alive” and tallies the deaths since 1968; as of June 9, 2012 the count was 266. Merle Haggard’s song “Kern River” fictionally recounts such a tragedy. Most of the people who died in the Kern River were recreational users who entered the water without proper life vests. Less than 2% of the deaths in the Kern River have occurred during commercial raft trips. (Wikipedia)

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Kernville itself, is a very small town on the Kern River of only about 1300+ people. For its size, Kernville has a large tourist industry focused on the white water rapids of the Kern River. While white water rafting is the main attraction, one can also enjoy mountain biking,rock climbing, and other outdoor activities. Fly fishing is also popular; in particular, the golden trout is highly sought after for catch and release fishing. Downtown Kernville which consists of a large tree-shaded square and buildings on three sides with highway 155 on the 4 side, has an Old West look and contains a number of restaurants, antique shops, bars and motels.

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We had taken advantage of a Groupon special for the last weekends of rafting with a company called SoCal Rafting. TripAdvisor gives them a 4.5 rating out of 5.

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It was 4th of July weekend so it was extremely busy with people literally everywhere waiting for their tour or buying items for the float. The first step after checking in was getting fitted for a life jacket which they clinch up extra tight and getting your paddle.

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Then there was a short safety speech about how to act on the water and such. Then on to the bus to take us to the drop in spot on the river.

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While on the bus, a longer safety speech with a few tales of tragedies and mishaps on the river along with the creation of buddy teams to help watch out of each other. Also a demonstration on to float the rapids in case you fall out of the raft.

Then we were on the river in rafts of different size some holding up to 8 people and some holding just 4, all with a guide to steer the raft. Both sides of the river have beautiful homes and open areas that the locals use as their beaches. And all the way down the river, locals on both sides are splashing you with water as you pass by. So you are part of this running water battle all the way down the river with Class 2 and 3 rapids in between.

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This was a lot of fun. Yet, there were some very scary moments as you went over the rapids backwards or sideways with the possibility of always falling out in the rushing water. That is not the danger – falling into the river. The danger comes from the extremely fast current and you hitting one or more of the huge rocks that could knock you out or hurt you badly. Or getting your foot caught in the rocks and breaking an ankle or drowning. Twice we had people in the front of the raft fall out and our guide was quick to respond by getting the people back into the raft swiftly.

The guides for Socal Rafting were total pros. They were knowledgeable and fun with interesting tales about the history of the area and the river. I would recommend this again. We did the short one hour run, but there were longer two-hour and four-hour tours, plus all day floats.

Because of the California drought now in its 5 straight year, the river has been down and the season for rafting is shorter each year. Please check before you go to make sure that the river is open for rafting.

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After getting off the river, we were hungry and the only non-bar on the square in Kernville was Big Blue Bear. Combo gift shop and eatery, the counter person was a little intense but we got our food and it was good. It seems the main place for locals to gather so a real combo of tourists and locals. Worth checking out.

Great trip within 5 hours of LA and worth the time for something different.

Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace – Bakerfield, CA

I have lived in California for about 30 years and I can honestly say that I have never been to Bakersfield except passing through on my way to somewhere else. And this time was not going to be any different. My friend and I were on our way to Kernville to go white water rafting.

However, that same weekend everyone else in California was as well. There was no “room in the inn” anywhere within a 25 mile radius of Kernville. We had no choice, we were spending the night in Bakersfield.

We jumped into our trusty car and made it across the Grapevine on I-5 to the turnoff at US 99 (the Golden State Highway) toward Bakersfield. Pulled into town about 4 PM and headed for our motel. Now this was a budget trip so we were not staying at the Four Seasons or any where like that.

We had picked the Quality Inn and Suites at 200 Union Ave in Bakersfield. We were about a mile north from California 58 (the Barstow-Bakersfield Highway). We also about a half mile south from California Avenue which is one of the main drags in Bakersfield. Lining the street for several blocks are chain restaurants and shopping malls. Maya Cinemas are on California Ave., which is a huge multiplex with 16 screens.

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The Quality Inn and Suites are listed on TripAdvisor as #39 out of 61 hotels in Bakersfield. Yet, it does have a 3 star rating based on 197 reviews. Ours was a first floor room just off the pool. You could tell that the hotel had been recently refurbished and all the rooms upgraded. Overall, we were very pleased with the room and the pool was excellent. We ended up staying for 2 nights and the total for a weekend in a double room was about $85 per night with tax. Free pool, free breakfast, and free internet are included.

So what to do in Bakersfield? TripAdvisor says that Bakersfield has 34 points of interest with the Crystal Palace listed as #2. We wanted dinner and the Crystal Palace offers full dinner service as well as being a concert venue with a very reasonable cover. So that is where we decided to go.

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First a little background for strangers to Bakersfield and Buck Owens. Buck “was an American musician, singer, songwriter and band leader who had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music charts with his band the Buckaroos. They pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, a reference to Bakersfield, California, the city Owens called home and from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call American music.” (Wikipedia). He lived in Bakersfield and decided to create a full-service concert venue and restaurant. As time and his fame grew, it also became a museum for memorabilia of his long career in Country Music and TV. Aside from this music career, Buck is most famous for being co-host of the TV series Hee Haw with Roy Clark. The show started in 1969 and Buck left the cast in 1986.

The Crystal Palace is designed in the Western Revival style, a style that resembles buildings from the 19th century American Old West. The exterior/interior resembles an American western town from that same period. The museum is located in display cases around the first floor, which resemble the windows to the building. (Wikipedia)

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We entered the lobby and the western motif continued into the building itself. The lobby was filled with case after case of his memorabilia and bronze statues of famous country singers. We paid a small cover as noted before and we followed a hostess into the main room.   It was surprising to me how large it was. The focus of the entire room is the music and the stage. The main room rises three stories and completely surrounds the stage. There is a giant bar at the back of the first floor that has seats that overlook the dance floor. Each floor is open to the main room with railings running along the length each floor. All the dinner tables on each floor are pushed up right against railings so every table and seat in the room has a clear view of the stage and dance floor.  Plus there are giant video screens on each side of the stage so you can see the band has they perform on stage. Yet while the main room is large and tall, no seat is further away then 100 feet from the stage I would guess.

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We heard three bands that night. They were good and professional playing a combination of rock and down home country. I do not know if they were local groups or bands that were on tour in the area. The most impressive thing about the stage was there was no down time between acts. It was really slick to watch. As one group finished their last song, the next band and crew came on stage. They plugged their instruments in, did a very quick sound check, and started playing right away. The longest gap between bands was probably about five minutes. Both the sound and film crews of the Crystal Palace were on it. They moved so fast that you hardly noticed that they were there.

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They placed us in the bar area with seats that faced the stage. They pack them in pretty tight, because there was no space between my friend and myself and the couple sitting next to us. It is a very basic menu that they offer. Steak, fish, salads and burgers. I got the grilled salmon which really was very good with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. My friend got a grilled salmon salad which was also very nice. The only part of this that I did not like was the size and price of the cocktails. I ordered a vodka tonic and what came was in a very small glass with not much vodka in it. I thought the price of $10 for that size drink was way to high for the amount of liquor was in it.

After dinner we took a couple of turns around the dance full that was full of big groups doing line dancing and the “boot scootin boogie,” while couples danced close together on the edges of the dance floor.

All in all, this was a really fun night filled with good food and music. Plus the sheer amount of stuff to look at in the museum cases is daunting.

Totally recommend the Crystal Palace for your next trip to Bakersfield.