Last weekend was our first cycling / picking / antiquing combo trip. While the Music Man participated in a metric century (a 62-mile bicycle ride) I drove down Highway 1 looking for places to shop.
Solvang, California
The ride started in Solvang so we went in Friday night to register. It’s a cute little town. Founded by a group of Danish teachers, the town has stayed true to their roots and every building that we saw was in a Danish style. There were windmills, Danish bakeries, and lots of shops with wooden shoes and little Danish dresses. The only thing in town that I saw that didn’t fit into this style was the Mission Santa Ynes. I wanted to do a tour of the mission but the parking was so bad (3,000 riders in this little town of 5,000!) that I never made it back over to the mission.
A shop in Solvang… full of Danish wooden shoes.
Giant Danish wooden shoes at a shop in Solvang. This shop also had houseshoes in the shape of wooden shoes!
Picking in Lompoc, California
We had dinner at the Red Viking. But because we signed up so late we had to get a hotel in another town. We ended up at the Embassy Suites in Lompoc and I’m really glad. First of all I loved this Embassy Suites! I think we’ve stayed at one before but this one was really nice. Built in the Spanish mission style with a lot of palm trees. The bed was really comfortable and so was the couch… which is important just in case one of us starts to snore. Breakfast was great. A chef made omelets to order.
And staying in another town gave me an opportunity to find even more places to shop. I have to admit, even though Solvang is cute I don’t really buy anything from places like that. Well, except for some pastries! I look for old, vintage, rusty & crusty to recycle, paint, or use to display. And in Lompoc that’s just what I found!
I had heard about an antique shop downtown with a lot of vendors and while looking for a parking spot I ran across a swap meet! Most of the things were “Dollar Store” inventory but there was one guy there with some really old stuff. I bought the dirtiest things I’ve ever bought from him! He gave me a good deal because they were in good shape but he just didn’t want to clean them. Now I have to see how much time it’ll take for me to clean them up. Back when we were snowed in in Canada we got to do some shopping and I found several spice racks full of little bottles that I really wanted but couldn’t fit them in my suitcase. And both of these cabinet/racks are FILLED with little glass bottles. And each bottle has some kind of spice in it.
I also went to Goodwill and the antique shop, Sweet Repeats, was pretty amazing, too. I’ll take some pictures today and share them with you later this week.
As I drove the 20 something miles back to Solvang I passed cyclists the whole way. Had to stop at the lavender farm and talk to the farmer. I bought some of his organic lavender to make some sachets with later.
Then I got distracted again by this cute little pink camper and almost ran over some cyclists. Well, not really… This girl really likes some pink! I read later that the city had made her change the pink paint on the outside of her building because they said it was too bright. So she toned it down on the outside but turned it up on the inside! It was a fun shop. Filled with vintage clothes, jewelry, and boots. The goodies overflowed into the back yard, too, where there were rusty bed frames, huge pottery jars filled with succulents and even more pink!
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Thanks for reading!
‘Til the next market,
Ann @ Duct Tape and Denim
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Your blog on the valley area was great (I live in Santa Barbara), and unfortunately they little pink shop closed down. I always wanted to go there but never had the chance, and suddenly it was gone.
Oh, no! I would have loved to go back and visit it again. It was a cute shop!