The Travels of LynDen Haus: Santa Inés Mission, Los Olivos wines, and Vandenberg beaches

Thursday, 18 October. We’ve decided to move on to Palm Springs tomorrow morning, so for today we opted to go back to Solvang one more time and visit Old Mission Santa Inés, and then maybe do some wine tasting over in the charming little historic town of Los Olivos, just a few miles north of Solvang in the beautiful wine country of California’s Santa Ynez Valley. The visit to Old Mission Santa Inés was well worth the trip back to Solvang. Founded in September 1804, the Mission was one of the last established by the Franciscan Fathers as part of Spain’s efforts establish a presence in California and to protect their territory and holdings against Russia and England. The Franciscans established these missions to teach the native population (at Santa Inés it was the Chumash Indians) the Spanish culture, Christianity, and a trade (usually ranching, farming, weaving, leather-making for boots and saddles, and candle making. The first Seminary in California was built at Santa Inés in 1844, to train young men to become priests. Our $5 admission fee allowed us to tour the entire mission, including the Sanctuary and the surrounding gardens. We were also treated to a tour of the Mission Museum that houses a collection of vestments, artwork, documents, and artifacts used in-and-around the Mission throughout its history. I have to say something about the collection of vestments. Mission Santa Inés has the largest and most valuable collection of early California church vestments from the 15^th century to 1718; turns out it was the depository for vestments from earlier successful Missions in Baja California and Mexico. Many of the more than 500 silk vestments throughout the California Missions are in fact older than the Missions themselves. The vestments are made of materials such as beautiful oriental silks (the material often given to the church by Spanish noble women to be made into vestments) with floral designs, satins, and brocades. Some of the vestments have gold or silver flat threads woven into their designs. I hope the photos I took at the Mission do justice to our visit.

Front entrance of Mission

Example of the vestments collection

View of the Mission's gardens

Lynette at garden's fountain

Mission's historic cemetery

After leaving Santa Inés and Solvang, we drove the few miles north to Los Olivos, passing through countryside full of numerous vineyards (Los Olivos Wineries). We ended up tasting wines at several tasting rooms conveniently located in the center of this small town, Our purchases included a nice off-dry Riesling, a Chenin Blanc, a very nice Reserve Chardonnay, and an excellent bottle of port from Daniel Gehrs Wines (you would like this port, Jamie). Oh, almost forgot; at one wine tasting room they also offered olive oil tasting and Lynette found a blood orange olive oil and a Balsamic blueberry vinegar. Plan to mix the two and serve with bread as an appetizer. All in all, a good visit to this charming little town in the Santa Ynez Valley.

By now we were pretty hungry and decided to head back to "Pea Soup Andersen's" in the little town of Buellton, just north of Santa Barbara. Andersen’s famous split pea soup is one of Lynette’s favorites --- and well worth the stop, let me tell you. By the time we got back to our campsite at Vandenberg AFB it was almost dusk. I wanted to see if I could get some sunset photos on one of VAFB’s beaches, so we headed back to Wall Beach, the first beach we visited when we arrived at VAFB. Once again we found an almost deserted beach and pretty much had it to ourselves. I think I got several good “sunset” photos (you be the judge) and we had a very leisurely walk along the beach just after sunset. A wonderful ending to our time here at VAFB. This will definitely become part of our “travel history” and campgrounds for a return trip. Kudos to VAFB!