A great (but too short) visit

April 23, 2011
Buellton, CA

We've had a very nice couple of days in the Lompoc-Buellton-Santa Ynez Valley. We arrived At Flying Flags in Buellton late in the afternoon on Wednesday, after an uneventful drive. We used our normal route of I-10 to I-210 around the north side of the LA area, then a short hop up I-5 to CA-126 in Santa Clarita. That takes us to US-101 in Ventura, and it's direct to Buellton from there. We didn't have any traffic to speak of (time of day plus fuel price issues?) and the only slowing down was for some of the worst road surfaces we've been on in years.

Thursday was a needed catch-up day. Laundry and grocery shopping; nothing else to report, other than the macerator pump used to empty the holding tanks crapped out (get it?). Fortunately (strange as that sounds), it's not the first time this has happened and I know how to remove it without making a complete mess. Plus, we always have the Big Blue Stinky Slinky as a back-up. But enough of that.

In the evening, we headed to the Hitching Post for dinner, putting away two nice steaks and a bottle of their very own Pinot Noir to boot. They still have the "As Seen In Sideways" stuff on display. Somewhere along the line, I heard that there's a Sideways II planned, which should be interesting.

Friday, we headed into Lompoc. We had a great visit with Geri's sister. As we came in the door at the facility where she lives, she saw us immediately and got really excited. I'm not sure she knew exactly who we were, but she knew we were visiting from far away and was very happy to see us. We spent a couple of hours with her until she got tired and went to look for her "boyfriend" to keep her company.

We then made a stop at the Fiddlehead Winery tasting room to pick up a couple of wine club "shipments" (it seems strange to call them that when they never get shipped). On the way out of the Lompoc "Wine Ghetto", we noticed a tasting room for Loring Wines, another of our favorite Pinot Noir producers, so we had to stop for a taste. Later, we made our usual stop at the Foley tasting room, conveniently located halfway between Lompoc and our base in Buellton. Fabulous day!

Our last day in Wine Country was spent, right, collecting wine. Of course, we had to have a few tastes. Quality control and all that. We first went to Tres Hermanas, north of Buellton on the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail. They have a small RV Park out back, but we've never ventured out there because of the winding roads. We took a different route and found that we'll be just fine with the coach for next time. Combined with a stop at the Lompoc Elks (closer to Kathy), we've already got a plan for our fall visit.

We made our last stops of the day at Lincourt Winery (pick-up only) and the D'Alfonso-Curran tasting room in Solvang (always a fun place to spend an afternoon. Suitably loaded up with wine, we're ready to start our trek to the east, leaving tomorrow.