Matthew's web log

After breakfast we went to the Santa Maria Museum of Flight. It’s a small museum located near the Santa Maria airport. Small museums like this are often fun because the people that work there (usually volunteers) are excited that you’re visiting and more than willing to give you a guided tour. This was exactly the case here:  as soon as we paid the small admission fee, the docent (a Marine in the Vietnam War) began walking us around the two hangers full of exhibits and the outdoor area of airplanes. While not the most amazing museum, it was a fun stop for an hour or so.

From Santa Maria, we drove to Lompoc for lunch. We ate at Bravo Pizza, which was no Speederia, but adequate and with a pleasant staff who gave us free bread sticks while we waited for our pie.  We then made the quick drive across town to the Wine Ghetto. Before another tasting at Flying Goat, we tried another winery that had some good reviews on yelp. The winery was Fiddlehead, but it was not as good as Flying Goat. The goat keeper was good as usual and we picked up a couple bottles.

We made a final wine stop at the Melville Winery (we had Melville wine with dinner over the summer and had a note to visit them when we were back in the area). There wasn’t much we liked, given how much we liked the previous wine of theirs that we had. 

Now we made our way to Palm Springs, braving the Los Angeles traffic and aggressive drivers. My Atlanta driving experience comes in handy here as the traffic moves at similar speeds to what it would in Atlanta.  Without any major delays, we made it to our hotel by dinner time.  After unloading the car, we had dinner at Sammy G’s Tuscan Grill, which we found adequate, but nothing we’d rush back to.  Our hotel is only a block away from downtown so we strolled back to our room and were now ready for our weeklong stay in the desert.