Santa Maria to Solvang - 40 miles flew by

Today was the perfect day.

 A 40 mile ride with a couple of hills but mostly through the flat agricultural regions dotted with hills loaded with vineyards and wineries.   We had a 15 mph tail wind which really helped on the ride.

Again the valley is brown, brown brown.  Jim who lives in the area said he has never seen this valley so brown.  While we started out at 9 am, midway through the ride the temps started hitting the mid 80's.  Close to 90 by end of the day.

We needed water - thank god for the sag stop in front of one of the local wineries!!

We have probably rode past a zillion wineries and as I mentioned before,  I have never every seen one of these wines in our local stores.  But we took a left onto Chalk Hill Road and I am a super fan of the Chalk Hill Chardonnay.   So was stoked to see the winery - but never found it.

Also on Chalk Hill Rd was a nursery that also created a bunch of animal scrubs.  Someone must have to come out and water them - else they would perish in this heat.

Had a couple of great downhills and arrived in Solvang which appears to be a Danish town in the middle of nowhere.  Some Danes founded the town in the early 1900's and tried to recreate their home land.  They must have quickly imposed a strict building code - as ever building looks like it could be in the middle of Denmark.  Lots of fake windmills.  Even our Holiday Inn looks like its from Europe.

It's Friday (I think) so there is a lot of traffic and the streets are filled with tourists (I guess I am one).  There are a bunch of wine tasting rooms and a brewery.

Decided I would start at the Brewery and then branch out to the Wineries.  All about the replenishment of your body fluids!  Pretty good beer - except they got a little cute calling them by Danish names (Danes Indian Pale Ale).  But pretty good beer in any case.

Rodger from Pittsburgh, found a two for one coupon for one of the wine tasting rooms in the hotel lobby and went there by himself.  He handed them the coupon and told them to pour two tastings of each wine for himself.  Ended up getting 10 tastings of the 5 wines.  Pretty smart - will need to think of this next time in Napa.

Made a mistake of eating at the place the tour provided.  It was supposed to be a Danish smorgasbord so I was curious to go check it out.  Ended up being really bad.  Not even the jello tasted any good.  The joke of the night was that even Ikea makes better Swedish Meatballs and the Danes should stick to cheese.  

Mark (retired baby doctor from England) and I decided to head back to the brewery as it was only 6:30 after dinner.  We grabbed a table outdoors and enjoyed the night (temperature drops immediately as soon as the sun goes down) with a pre-bed brew.

Tomorrow we have out last long ride with hills (84 miles).  I hope we head out before the heat hits as this will make the day a challenge.  The the last couple of weeks we have had a rest day every Saturday - but we are pressing on to the finish.  Nine days of heavy riding without a break is pretty hard.

Got to grind it out tomorrow!!  On to Oxnard wherever this is.