Finally got to use the gift certificate that P got when he left the mouse house - Victorian Mansion, here we come! We went up to SLO Thursday night and had dinner at Kate's with the fam. Then in the morning, P&J went for dodos, we dropped J at school, and then we were off!
Had some time to kill before check-in, so we had lunch in Solvang (The Red Viking, meh), got a florentine and a pistachio bar at one of about 100 Danish bakeries in town, and then made our way to Ostrich Land USA. This was our second visit (you really only need one, but I'm a sucker for animal attractions), so we kind of knew the drill. P's fave was the diabeetus ground squirrel.
Finally headed for Los Alamos, which is about 20 mins from Buellton and approximately 3 blocks long. All of the hotel guests had arrived early, so while we waited, we got a sneak peek at the available-soon Castaway Suite, aka boat-in-the-backyard. Got checked into the Gypsy suite, which is delightfully tacky, but we think they could have themed even harder.
Had an awesome dinner at Pico - did our usual lots of sides and one main, plus a bottle of wine and an ice cream flight, mmm. Got a good tip from our server on the local dive bar, The Depot, and it did not disappoint! (I was almost disappointed when I saw that they have a website, but... they don't.) The advertised live music didn't happen, but the juke was eclectic, and the pool was free!
After a lovely breakfast that appeared in the hotbox embedded in our suite wall (!), we went out to meet the bus for our wine tour, along with Mary & Billy from Hanford, who were also staying at the hotel. Tom scooped us up, then swung through Solvang to pick up Winnie & Samvir from SD, and we were off to our first stop at the Brander Vineyard. We got lucky in that everyone on the tour was cool - we all got along well, and birthday girl Mary and P talked travel a lot. Got some nice meyer lemon olive oil at Rancho Olivos (met dogs Shadow & Hero), then hit Brickbarn, where we sat outside and had lunch. I think everyone's favorite was our last stop at Bella Cavalli, a winery / equestrian center where there's no tasting room - owner host Jeff just pours wine in the yard, and you can roam around the grounds and meet the horses. (dogs: LB - Little Brother and puppy Daisy. horses: too many to name, but they were all sweet and verrry well cared-for.) We also learned from Jeff that European wines have a much lower alcohol content, which may explain our mysteriously missing hangovers in Italy. We bought one bottle at each stop til we got to Jeff's, where we got 3. (Unclear whether the wine is that great or we were just drunk by that point.)
Los Alamos has about 4 restaurants - 5 if you count the coffee place (which does not keep coffee place hours). So we went to the highly-recommended Full of Life Flatbread, which seems to have no end of off-menu items (iykyk), and flatbread that fell a bit flat with us (sorry). The brownie was excellent, though!
Then round 2 at the Depot (1 of 2 bars - the other one was full with weddings all weekend), where we got whipped at pool by Billy & Mary. It's good for P to get knocked down a peg once in a while. 😂
Had another nice hotbox breakfast, then checked out Atlas Obscura for anything interesting in the area. Of 4 items, we had already visited one and slept in another, so we drove out to the former Neverland Ranch. Unfortunately, it has been sold, and from the road, nothing remains to indicate that it once housed the King of Pop and his menagerie.
Continued on San Marcos pass, and made our way home!
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