Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in Gallery.
We got up and drove to McDonald's for breakfast — the same one as before, since the Marriott turned out to be right near the original Motel 6. After breakfast, we went back to our room and packed up all of our crap that was scattered around the room, and hit the road before 10:00am.
Our first stop of the day was the Old Mission Santa Barbara, the "Queen of the Missions". This is an active parish, so the church was initially closed due to Sunday services. However, we paid for admission to the little museum and got to see the church afterwards. It was interesting, but we were kind of annoyed that the museum insisted on pretending that there were no real negative consequences to the mission system. Everything stressed the "cooperation" of the missionaries and native peoples, and then somehow forgot to mention the end result (i.e. complete loss of their culture, and then a descent into poverty & destitution once the missions closed under the new Mexican government).
By the time we got done at the mission, it was raining fairly hard, the first rain that this part of California has seen in months, if not more. We drove into the city center of Santa Barbara, parked, and found a sub sandwich for lunch. Oddly, the TV in the restaurant was playing a repeat of the UCI World Road Race Championships, so we got to watch Peter Sagan win the race. (Even though we knew what would happen from reading Cycling News, it was still fun.)
We spent the next few hours walking around in the rain looking at historic buildings. Our first stop was the El Presidio, where some poor couple was having their wedding in the rain. After that, we headed to Casa de la Guerra, which had an interesting discussion of the wallpaper found in the house (some from as far away as France, showing the reach of global trade even at the time). We finished up our tour at the Santa Barbara Courthouse, built in 1929. There's some magnificent stone and tilework in the building.
After finishing up in Santa Barbara, we headed up the coast for an hour-long drive to Solvang. We had no problem finding our hotel, the Royal Copenhagen Inn, right in the middle of town. We parked the car and headed across the street for the free wine tasting that we got from the hotel, and then spent a few hours walking around. Our travels included a stop at the Hans Christan Anderson Museum, and Ken also found a fun hat for use at holidays later this year. All in all, Solvang was nice, but felt a little like Wisconsin Dells with a Danish twist (very touristy).
Eventually, we got tired of walking around, so we got dinner at the best place we could find that was still open. (Solvang seems to close down in the evening as the tour buses leave.) Ken had a monte cristo sandwich, which was good but was much heavier than he expected. It sat in his stomach like lead the rest of the night.
Back at the hotel, we spent some time writing down our recollections of the kayak trip, so we wouldn't forget them before writing this journal, and then read for a little while before going to bed.
Monday morning, we skipped the hotel's continental breakfast and walked a few doors down to have real Danish pancakes. Immediately after breakfast, we hit the road and headed back down the coast. Our goal (per our guide book's recommendation) was to hit the north of the LA metro area no later than 1:00pm, since we had to drive all of the way across the metro.
By around lunch, we had made it as far south as Long Beach. It was really neat to see the HUGE area of the docks with dozens of cranes, gantries, etc. It felt like the harbor area went on forever.
We got off the highway in Long Beach and got lunch at a mediocre local Mexican restaurant. After lunch, we went to see the USS Iowa Museum floating museum. Iowa is a WWII battleship that last saw service during the first Gulf War. During our time on the Iowa, we also got to watch a container ship guided into the docks by tugs, which was pretty interesting.
After finishing up at the Iowa, we drove a few minutes to the Aquarium of the Pacific, since we had purchased a combo pass to get into both the aquarium and the Iowa. The aquarium was ok, but we were a little underwhelmed. The value was ok with the combo pass, but it would have been way overpriced on its own.
After leaving the aquarium, we walked around a little to kill time and avoid as much of rush hour as possible. We saw the Queen Mary from a distance in the harbor, and eventually got dinner at Pier 76 Fish Grill, a fast food seafood place. The food was really cheap and was worth about what we paid — not bad, not great. Oddly, all of the soda they had in their soda fountain was local small-volume brands (i.e. not Coke or Pepsi), a pattern we would eventually see repeated at other places in San Diego.
After dinner, we walked back to the car and headed south for Dana Point on I-5. The road was huge. The biggest we saw was 6 traffic lanes and 2 carpool lanes in each direction, and the road was still 5 lanes wide even as far south as Dan Point. Since we were at the tail end of rush hour, it continued to be pretty crowded, but fortunately we were able to utilize the carpool lanes most of the way.
After getting off the interstate, we got a bit turned around (a left turn lane for u-turns only??!?), but eventually found our hotel, the Dana Point Marina Inn. After checking in, we went walking to look for an ATM and hopefully some ice cream. We found both at a Rite Aid pharmacy, where "Uncle Larry" always gives big scoops to kids (big or little) on Monday nights. Ken's two-scoop cup ended up being more like 4 scoops.
We started walking back toward the hotel while eating our ice cream. Ken got distracted by boats, and we eventually walked along the entire shoreline of the huge Dana Point Marina before heading back to the hotel and going to bed. (To get a sense for how big this place is, click on the link and check out some of the aerial pictures.)
The next morning, we got breakfast at the hotel before hitting the road south toward San Diego again. The exit for our first stop (Old Mission San Luis Rey) came up faster than anticipated and we missed it. So, we got off sometime later and circled around on city streets to find it. San Luis Rey is apparently no longer a parish, but does still offer a Franciscan retreat center. Their museum was smaller than the museum at Old Mission Santa Barbara, but it was more even-handed in its discussion of the Mission era. They were at least willing to admit that the purpose of the Mission system was to prepare the natives to be good Spanish citizens, and thereby help secure the Spanish colonial claim. All in all, we liked it better.
After leaving the mission, we headed inland to the Palomar Observatory, which is run by CalTech. Palomar had the largest optical telescope in the world (200") from 1949 until 1992 when Keck opened in Hawaii. To get to Palomar, we had to drive fairly far in from the coast, and then get off main roads and up into the mountains and the Cleveland National Forest.
On the way to Palomar, we stopped for some really good street-style Mexican food at a little shop across from a huge Indian casino. It was kind of surreal to be driving in the middle of foothills and agriculture, and then come around a corner to see a 20-story hotel and casino complex.
At Palomar, there's a small visitor center, and then visitors get access to a viewing room for the big telescope. You can also walk around the grounds. However, the observatory is not operating during the day. So, there's not a lot to do while you're there, but it was still interesting and worthwhile. The observatory is at around 5600 feet of elevation, so it was fairly cold by the time we got up there — around 50 degrees vs. high 80s along the coast. Plus, they keep the telescope at average nighttime temperatures, so the facility itself is COLD. We were glad to have our fleeces along.
After finishing up at the observatory, we worked our way back to the interstate and continued to San Diego. On the way, we attempted to stop for gas, but gave up after the strange gas station payment kiosk was too confusing and annoying to deal with.
The highway turned enormous as we got into the San Diego metro area, but we arrived a little before rush hour and did not run into much traffic. Downtown, we had no problems finding our hotel, the Best Western Bayside Inn. This is a high-rise hotel a few minutes' walk from the water, in the Little Italy neighborhood. We liked it a lot.
After getting settled in at the hotel, we thought about getting a 15th anniversary dinner at the Hotel del Cononado, on the recommendation of Julie's boss Elise. However, after looking at the prices on the menu and realizing that we'd have to drive, we decided to walk to dinner someplace closer instead. We ended up walking 15-20 minutes over to the East Village neighborhood to a place called Cafe Chloe, which styles itself as a French cafe.
We got there a little early, around 5:00pm, and they weren't serving dinner yet. So, we got a table on the sidewalk patio and ordered a cheese plate and a bottle of wine. When dinner started at 5:30pm, we ordered a meal and eventually dessert off the dinner menu. Cafe Chloe does a half-off special on their reserve wines every Tuesday and Wednesday, so we were able to celebrate with a really expensive bottle of Brunello di Montalcino for probably less than we could buy for it in a store here at home. All of the food was really good, and we lingered at our table until well after dark. Our very friendly waiter took a picture of us when he brought our dessert (although he had a few problems with it and acted like he'd never before seen a camera that wasn't part of a phone).
Instead of walking directly back home after dessert, we spent another hour or two taking the scenic route. We walked over to the Padres baseball stadium, past the convention center and expensive hotels, and eventually down to the water. From there, we walked along waterfront past the USS Midway and the Maritime Museum and back to the vicinity of Little Italy and our hotel.