left coast roadtrip part five // solvang

I know I've been sharing travel photos like crazy from my trip a few months ago, and I promise this is the last installment! So after getting a good night's rest after the drive through Big Sur, we made our first Solvang stop at Ostrichland, which was easily the most hilarious part of our whole trip. It's pretty much an ostrich and emu petting zoo, except you're not allowed to pet them. But you can feed them, and ohhh, they love to be fed. It was impossible to take these photos without laughing; seeing a horde of greedy ostriches bobbing their heads furiously as they're eating out of the food bowl in my husband's hand is the best.

At first, we figured we'd each feed just a bowl or two and be done. But no, these animals gobble it up so quickly that you simply must go back for seconds, thirds, fourths, and possibly fifths. Especially when there are babies to feed. You can't forget the babies.

And then we were off to the Land of Pastries and Windmills! Solvang's Danish Village is, in a word, delightful.

And then we wandered into a random wine tasting room because we realized we were in major wine country and had yet to taste any wine....(Also, we are not wine connoisseurs by any means. But we do like drinking it.)

We did a little more walking, a little more shopping, a little more enjoying the sights, and then I told the mister we needed to stop at the Maverick Saloon just a few miles away just to check it out. It was early in the afternoon, so not too much action inside, but we enjoyed a cold beer and chatted up the bartender. And how crazy is that hordes-of-dollar-bills ceiling?

Solvang, I think I'm in love with you.

left coast roadtrip part four // big sur

Day 3. The drive down Highway 1 through Big Sur was one of the prettiest I've ever taken. Blue waters, rock cliffs, and an amazing flower field right on the water to traipse through.

The color of the ocean kind of blew me away....I wasn't expecting it to be so...blue. It was beautiful. And the mister had a grand 'ole time climbing down a semi-dangerous hill to get to the rocks below. I stayed safely put, because camera gear + sandals = heck no.

Here's a little camera + iPhone video footage that I shot as well. 

big sur from Lisa Kimberly on Vimeo.

After several of these little pit stops, we kept driving down Highway 1 and made our way to Nepenthe, which is this great restaurant tucked into the mountains with an incredible outdoor terrace to soak in the views.

Unreal. California, you keep surprising me :)

a tuesday music mix

I've been kind of obsessed with 8tracks lately. You can search for literally thousands of user-uploaded playlists using different tag words or genres. It's been my go-to for discovering some new music. Well, after browsing and playing numerous playlists for the past few months, I decided to make a quickie mix of my own. I've been on a real ambient/down-tempo/electronic music mood lately, so....yeah.

1. Manual // Keeps Coming Back

2. Atlantic Drop // Flight Over The Atlantic

3. Krishan Vadivelu // Forte

4. Broke For Free // The Gold Lining

5. Washed Out // Before

6. Arms and Sleepers // Kepesh

7. Brian Eno // Deep Blue Day

8. Maxence Cyrin // Where Is My Mind

9. This Will Destroy You // They Move On Tracks of Never-Ending Light

Feel free to follow me on 8tracks for future mixes :)

this movie and this song

I watched the movie Starlet recently, and this great little indie flick gave me all the feels. I was blown away by the performances of the two lead characters. Poignant, and touching, and melancholy.

 

Not only did I love the story, but the score by Manual was such a perfect, ethereal addition to the film. This track has pretty much been stuck in my head and playing on a loop.

 

left coast roadtrip part three // san francisco

Day 2 & 3. I'm not gonna lie, the visit to San Francisco was a bit short and more hurried than I would've liked. But we did manage to get our tintype photos taken, reminisce about Spain over tapas and sangria, and play tourists for a few hours at the Golden Gate Bridge and in Chinatown. 

We had about an hour to kill before our tintype portrait appointment, so we parked the car and just wandered around Valencia Street. Lo and behold, we came across a few Spanish tapas restaurants, so we picked one at random and enjoyed a light meal with some killer sangria. It was perfect, and I kept joking that our Spain radar was on point.

And then off to Photobooth to get our tintype portraits taken! The mister especially enjoyed the free PBR they offered.

Here's an instagram I took while he was having his portrait taken. The folks at Photobooth are super great; they even let us into the darkroom so we could watch our prints being developed.

We've officially been tintyped.

How could I visit SF for the first time and NOT photograph the Golden Gate Bridge at least once, right? You kinda just have to. Even though I usually don't go crazy for architectural landmarks,  it was pretty neat to see it in person. Much prettier than I expected. Meanwhile, all the SF locals are all, "What's the big deal, it's just a boring bridge."

Then we got super touristy, and headed to Chinatown for some lunch. And I have to admit, my first impression was not that great, due to some extremely rude shopkeepers who refused to exchange bills for quarters for our parking meter. I'm sure they could smell "out-of-towner" on us. So we had to make it a quickie lunch at some place I forget the name of, and the food was okay. The mister claimed (as he always does) that Wo Hop in New York City is infinitely better, but I was just ready to get out of Rudetown and hit the road for Big Sur. The icing on the cake? We got an $80 parking ticket for parking in a commercial loading zone. Lovely!

I definitely want to visit San Francisco again, and for longer. We barely scratched the surface this time around. 'Til next time.