So, I thought, what could be more adventurous than raiding a Danish town? I mean, the Danes are Vikings (and excellent bakers). Vikings are tough. An adventure for sure. Where is there a Viking town?--Solvang!!! California. Almost in our backyard.
I recruited my baby brother, Jason, for this adventure. We were going to pillage and loot and maybe even some more unseemly behavior if need be. Or we were going to relax and eat lots of things that would make Atkins roll over in his grave.
We left Monday around noon and after a few stops we arrived at our destination of Buellton. You see, we had not pillaged yet and were on a budget and Buellton was more in our price range for a room. Now, Buellton did not have any Vikings, nor did it have any baked goods. It did, however, have a movie theater where we saw Transformers. What a cool show. We were transforming everything around us all night long after that.
We decided, after driving through Solvang in the evening, that Vikings don't hang out at
night. We did pass the Viking Garden restaurant, so we knew where they would be the next day.
We crashed for the night and got up bright and early on Tuesday around 11
ish (Hey, pillagers have got to be well rested). We also chose to eat the local food. We 
attacked Paula's Pancake House. We had some mighty tasty pancakes after
an argument involving Jason requesting a waffle in "THE" pancake house. We settled the issue and Jason had pancakes. We had a very lovely little Danish waitress who made sure we had the endless refills of maple syrup.
After eating, we opted to get the lay of the land rather than attack Vikings immediately. We
wandered around the small Danish town looking at various little knickknacks and a ton of
that blue ceramic stuff. We even found wooden shoes; I bought them. When in Rome...
The odd things was that, try as we might, we could find no Vikings. Oh sure, there are plenty of establishments who claim to have Vikings, but not a one did we see.
Since it appeared we would be unable to complete our quest we went with our back up plan. Eat as much butter laden carbohydrates and chunks of beef that we could find. And we did. Much to the chagrin of the cleaning staff at our hotel and perhaps even the air quality management district of Buellton.
On our way back to our hotel we passed an Ostrich and Emu farm. Well hell, we would be remiss if we did not feed the Ostriches? Ostrichi? Ostrichen? and Emus. We went up and 
paid our 4 bucks a piece (1 buck for kids) and we paid our 1 buck for Ostrich food and we were ready, though not without some words of warning. 1. Hold
on to your Ostrich feedin' bowl with both hands. 2. Hold on tight. Ostriches
like to take the bowl. 3. They will bite you. and 4. No sweet Ostrich love. (I have to say, Jason was very disappointed as were several rather attractive Ostriches.
We walked out and around the corner and there they were--Sneetches. These Sneetches had no stars upon thars. Jason went first. He was more expendable. I had the car keys and the money. I held back and snapped photos for reconnaissance. Once the Ostrich pellets were depleted they simple had nothing to do with Jason. Now it was my turn. Let me tell you, baby brothers will do everything they can to get you pecked on by an ostrich. The whole time, all I heard was, "look over here at the camera." Yeah, that went over well. The emergency room doctor said the concussion and migraines will only last for a few months and that a good plastic surgeon will be able to fix my ear and the divot in my melon.
We then visited the emus. Emus are fascinating bird like things. These buggers are very
scary looking, however appeared to be somewhat friendly. We even petted them. Take a look at the pics. I am telling you, we were having a Dark Crystal moment there.
Now it must be noted that living with the big birds with dinosaur feet are the bravest freakin' squirrels in the world. They will practically crawl up your leg for Ostrich chow. They hang out in gangs at the edge of the bushes like miniature Jets and Sharks. They even made me back down at one stage. Fearless I tells ya.
After our experience with the sneetches and skexis we decided that gambling was in our blood and there was the Chumash Indian Casino very near. We went back to the room and brushed up on craps. We watched every Youtube.com video on winning. We were players now. We hit that casino rolling. Once again, can't do much without food in ya, so we hit the buffet.
Now, I don't much like buffets as a rule. They are kind of gross, but this one was wonderful. I ate my fill and then snuck out a few desert items in my pockets for later.
We hit the floor, looking sharp. The wrinkled, penny slot playing geriatric babes knew we were there. Mainly because they would kick our asses when we tried to sit at their 8th slot machine they were tending at the same time. Anyhow, craps, here we come...what's that? No dice games? Ahhhh, some law thingy or another eh? Well, don't that just suck. Meh, we played blackjack and then we played nickel slots to kill time. I, being a high roller, broke even at 21 and lost 10 bucks on the slots. Jason, however, bordering on being a gambling addict lost 40 skins. I tried to stop him at 30 but he just wouldn't listen. I will say this for Jason, though he lost his fortune, the kid's got balls. He jumped right in and played for all he was worth. So what if we didn't know why there were so many lines on the slot machine or that they won't let you take your shoes off to count on your toes also for the game 21, Jason is fearless.
After being inducted into the Chumash Indian Casino Tribe, we headed home and crapped
out there.
Our journey home was pretty uneventful, though I was hellbent on buying wooden shoes
and did so. After that we toyed with the idea of heading back to the Ostriches but decided against this. We were on our way.
A short bit out of Buellton/Solvang we saw the turnoff to the Nojoqui park. We had been told of these picturesque waterfalls, so we went. Now, being the in-shape sort of fellers we are, when we read that it was a 10 minute hike, we had to stop and pause. That is pretty lengthy, but we were up to it. We geared up and headed to the trail, but not without reading the 
mountain lion warning sign. Feel free to take a look at the pic. It speaks for
itself. Needless to say, Jason and I sang show tunes the entire duration of our trip and clacked our sticks together to ward off the creatures. I saw that one in a documentary called Parent Trap with Haley Mills.
The Nojoqui Falls were really neat looking though there was barely a trickle of
water coming down. The hike was all uphill but that only meant that the return was downhill--that kept our spirits up. Once we hit the falls area, it was a paradise. A little pool of water with little water tricklets coming down.
We were hot and parched so we stripped down naked and jumped in. We were cooling down (and scrubbing a bit since this could count for our monthly bath) when we noticed we weren't alone. There were 4 teenage kids chillin and taking pictures and then a dude and his wife and his little dog Toto came up as well.
We quickly started saying things like, "For shurgen my nurgen." and "Yah, You betcha." to make them think we were from Solvang (a foreign country, therefore nakedity is perfectly legal). We, unwilling to admit our fault, hung out naked taking in the scenery and casually redressed.
There was a danger sign posted, which simply means, "Captain Dunn, come over and do what I am telling you not to do." The doctor says t
he swelling and brain hemorrhage will go down after a few months and the erectile dysfunction has nothing to do with my injury.
We grabbed our gear and headed back for the mainland. We loaded up and took off for home. We dropped into Ventura, CA where we visited a cool art gallery and then ate at an Irish Pub. It was gorgeous down there.
Back on the road we hit wonderful traffic heading towards Pasadena and we violated an Office Depot bathroom.
After a long fulfilling day of driving we finally arrived home.
Yes, we did not find any Vikings and no we did not pillage much. We did however have a very relaxing time just taking it easy in a beautiful little Danish town, ate the best danish I have ever had, relaxed and watched bold wildlife and fed ostriches and emus. What can be better than that.
If you have an adventure you would like to share, drop me an e-mail. It would be very cool to hear from you.
Natasha and Kelly make really cool ceramics (goblets, plates, magnets,
bottles and other goodies), drawings and paintings and other items d'art sort of based on the Dia De Los Muertos theme. The happy skeletons.
stuff. You really
need to check them out. 
Next up is the ladies from Faeries Magazine/Pyrate magazine. They were just great. I met the publisher's husband Klaus at PyrateCon a few months ago.
He was a great guy so it was very nice to meet his wife. You all have to forgive me, but I cannot remember her name. As soon as I get hold of her I will post it here.
reasonably priced for the consumer end. He does have some more collector one-of-a-kind statues as well. 
bastards, we only buy magnets. However, this artwork is really neat and alluring. All the artwork is very empowering to women. They have a strong 
sense of the erotic and the control that is woman. That sound cool? 
