Back in Los Angeles

Today was another driving day.  One map we had said it would be about 3 hours and another map said it would be about 3.5-4 hours to get to LA from San Luis Obispo (SLO) - it took us all day!  Of course, that includes the 30mins we had to spend waiting for Eric to buy a Ryobi 18V Cordless Hard Surface Blower, which he intends to use to blow bees out of the boxes.  It is cheaper to buy it here than in NZ.

Before we left SLO, we popped our head inside the Mission (as the door was open for prayer), then we walked round more of the historic area, including the old Free Library (one of over 1,600 donated to the country by Andrew Carnegie) which now houses a small museum.  Thanks to an email from home, we became aware of a local tourist spot in SLO, Chewing Gum Alley!  Yep, an alleyway plastered on each wall with chewing gum of every colour!  It smelt like chewing gum!

 We drove for some time, and stopped in Lompoc at the site of the original Mission La Purisima, founded in 1787 but destroyed in an earthquake in 1812.  When it was re-built, they did it some miles away, and it is now a State Park.  Apparently, it is very well re-constructed, with an authentic atmosphere, even costumed interpreters.  But, with cost and time against us, we headed on.  Lompoc itself is where more than half of the world's flower seeds are grown, and June to September are colourful times to drive around Lompoc.  All we saw was one field of colour, and lots of vegetables.

Next stop was Solvang, a town founded by Danish educators from Minnesota as a folk school.  There are windmills, half-timbered buildings, thatched roofs, and storks, and lovely fattening danish pastries!

There is also a Mission, Mission Santa Ines, built in 1804.  Parts of it have been destroyed by earthquakes and fires, but it has been restored and has a lovely painted altar.  The walls of the mission are 12 feet thick, hence that building surviving earthquakes.  It is when the whitewash comes off or the tiles come off the roof that the adobe underneath gets eaten away and destroyed and collapses.

 Next stop was a windy drive to see painted caves at Chumash Painted Cave National Park (no entrance or parking fee!).  The actual cave is blocked off, but you can see through the wire gate.  They believe that Shaman from the Chumash Indian tribe did the paintings, but they don't know why or what they represent.  The black circle in the top picture below may represent a solar eclipse.

Next stop was Santa Barbara.  Again, because time was against us, it was just a fleeting visit - we went up to the mission, and looked at it from the outside.  In 1925, much of Santa Barbara was flattened by an earthquake, but the mission survived.  It was founded in 1786 and sits on a hill, looking down over the town.  The Chumash Indians there were very clean, and built a clothes washing basin or lavanderia, which has a carved mountain lion's head for a spout at one end, carved by a Chumash artisan and believed to be the oldest public sculpture in California.

We drove through Malibu Canyon and then along the coast, looking for stars at their Malibu beach homes in the early evening (must have been too early for them to be about though!), and the boys played on the beach with the pier in the background as we tried to find some reasonably-priced accommodation.  We have ended up over by LAX, the airport, ready for our departure tomorrow afternoon for Tahiti.  But, we do have a reminder of Malibu with us - there is sand on the floor and in the boy's bed!