It's a beautiful day in Solvang, and we've had a nice ride around the area. We started with the motorcycle museum, and wow, what a trip through time! It's difficult to choose just a couple of these machines to include in the blog, but here are a couple of my favorites.

An interesting design on this one!

This is Virgil Elings, Ph.D., the owner of this fine collection of motorcycles. A very accomplished scientist and the founder of Digital Instruments, Inc. and other companies. This gentleman has a very accomplished background in the field of physics, and holds 42 patents in Scanning Tunneling and Atomic Force Microscopes (according to Bloomberg Business).

While we were touring the museum, guess who walked in? He was fascinating to listen to, and a very unassuming man.

This guy looks like he had one too many hot rides in the desert :)

Next we took a short ride out to Ostrich Land, just outside of Solvang.

We decided not to pay the price of admission, but instead went around to the fence to get a couple of shots. These two had at least one chick playing hide and seek under those huge wings. I guess I didn't realize how big these things actually are!

 

This is just a random shot of some pretty roses on a fence in front of a vineyard, there are so many beautiful plants here.

After lunch we stopped at the lavender farm. The drought has been really tough on the plants, but there was still a beautiful field of lavender. We made a few small purchases in the gift shop, then enjoyed some Lavender Lemonade out under the umbrellas. This is our little group on this morning's ride, in front of the gift shop at the lavender fields. From left to right, Phil and his daughter Katie, who live in Citrus Heights, California (near where I spent my early childhood), Ryan and Shannon from Honolulu, me, Sherm, and Ray (from somewhere in California, I think).

Relaxing in the shade beside the lavender fields.

Me, Sherm and Shannon with our little lavender bags...

And a pretty canopy on the way out.

We wanted to go see the miniature donkeys and horses, but didn't realize that the ranches closed at 3:00 PM, so we'll try that again on Saturday morning.