A Vacation to End All Vacations...

We flew out of Portland (PDX) en route to Santa Barbara, CA on Friday, September 16th to enjoy our last vacation of the year. We had planned this vacation carefully, but could not imagine what was in store for us.

The first surprise was the "free upgrade" to a brand new, 2012 Mustang to cruise around in while we enjoyed the California sunshine. It was the perfect color...red! I don't have to tell anybody, I was in "car lovers heaven" with a ride in this car. The only thing better would have been if someone had told me, "it's yours!"

It was about a 25 minute drive from Santa Barbara (actually Goleta, where the airport is) to Solvang. You don't even have to guess who got to drive the Mustang first...me, of course! We loved the ride up the coast looking at the beautiful blue Southern California Pacific Ocean. We didn't stop anywhere along the way, because this weekend in Solvang was their 100th Birthday Celebration with Danish Days, and the opening parade and ceremonies were tonight.

We arrived at our beautiful World Mark Time Share and checked in. Our room was amazing! But, they always are. It is always like a home away from home for us.




We quickly settled in, changed our clothes and headed downtown (walking distance) to enjoy the candle light parade up Copenhagen Street. It all ended at the big tent where we enjoyed music, dancing, speeches, and getting to meet the 75th annual Princess of the festival. It was all great fun.


This little family was so adorable. The mother is from Denmark and the three little ones that are hers, were the life of the party! One of the highlights of the show was the character, Hans Christian Anderson, singing one of his songs and cutting out his amazing cut-work. We learned that that is what Hans Christian Anderson did whenever he told a story. He would cut whle telling the story, and when the story ended, the cut work was always related tothe story. It was amazing.

As the day came to an end, we walked back to our room and enjoyed the left-over feelings of a really fun evening. It was a perfect day, and so we say, "good-night." I will continue the recap of our vacation with my next writing.