California’s “Kentucky of the West”

Jill's Journal: We’ve been in the Santa Ynez Valley – which includes the neighboring small towns of Buellton, Solvang, Los Olivos, Ballard, and Santa Ynez itself, all around 15 miles inland and just above Santa Barbara – since Sunday and it took us less than 30 seconds to fall in love with the area. Seriously. The picturesque, rolling hills are dotted with vineyards, but – even better – there’s bucolic horse farms (Thoroughbred, Icelandic, miniature, and more) at every turn. We are smitten. When we spotted literature proclaiming this area the “Kentucky of the west; California’s horse country,” at least that explained why we like it so much. Oh yes, we like it here very, very much.

If we ever decide to call California home again, this is the spot (well, not necessarily the exact place in the photo above, but the general area!). Or it would be if we had a few million to spare. Unfortunately, real estate with a few acres here is outrageously priced (yes, we like it enough to have checked!).

With as taken as we are by the area, it’s no surprise we’re not the first ones to have felt this way. Ronald Reagan’s Rancho del Cielo was not far from here. He used it as his retreat during his presidency and it became known as the “Western White House.” Among the international dignitaries he hosted here were Queen Elizabeth II and Mikhail Gorbachev. And it turns out Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch was/is here too. There goes the neighborhood!

We’ve spent some time in the darling little Danish town of Solvang, which just celebrated its 100-year anniversary last year. Rob and I have both been here before, both separately and together, and it’s touristy but just such a delight. This meticulous, picturesque, pedestrian-friendly little village has flower-lined streets and windmills and is the closest thing to Denmark here in America.

I want to shrink our girls and put them in these traditional Danish clothes! How adorable would that be?

Ornamental storks appear on rooftops all over the town. The Danes consider them good luck (as do the Dutch…I wonder how many European cultures do?).

There’s a statue of Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish writer of just about every good fairy tale known to children…

…and a small museum dedicated to him and his 160+ fairy tales known the world over…

…which includes things like authentic correspondence from the man himself, who lived from 1805 to 1875.

In next-door Buellton, one can’t pass up a visit to Pea Soup Andersen’s, a stopover for travelers since 1924.

The rest of the food is nothing to write home about, but the signature split pea soup is delicious. Andersen’s serves over two million bowls of it annually.