Our last stop yesterday was to Solvang, CA which I’ll let Wikipedia explain: “Solvang was founded in 1911 on 11,000 acres (4,500 ha) of the Rancho San Carlos de Jonata Mexican land grant, by a group of Danish educators, who traveled west to escape midwestern winters. The city is home to some bakeries, restaurants, and merchants offering a taste of Denmark in California. The architecture of many of the buildings follows traditional Danish style. There is a copy of the famous Little Mermaid statue from Copenhagen, as well as one featuring the bust of famed Danish fable writer Hans Christian Andersen. A replica of the Copenhagen observatory Rundetårn in the scale 1:3 was finished in 1991 and can be seen in the city centre.”

Jeremy Feeding Ostrichs from Jeremy Person on Vimeo.

OstrichLand was probably my second favorite stop yesterday, mostly because I love animals so it was fun getting so close to the ostriches.  They are som big, powerful and dare I say even ugly creatures!

Here are some interesting facts I learned from my visit:

• Adult ostriches stand 8′ to 9′ tall and weight 250 to 350 pounds
• Ostriches mature at 2 to 3 years, and breed until 40 years
• An ostrich can reach speeds of 45 MPH
• The oldest ostrich on record is 81 years old
• The ostrich is the only bird with two toes
• An ostrich egg weighs 3 to 4 pounds, the equivalent of 24 chicken eggs.  Ostrich eggs hatch in 42 days
• A good hen lays 40 to 60 eggs a season.  One layed 120 eggs!  Ostrich farming started in Southern Africa in 1857
• Ostriches are vegetarians and eat 3.5 pounds of food a day
• Each ostrich produces 1.5 pounds of feathers per season
• Ostrich hens incubate the eggs during the day, the rooster sits on the eggs at night
• An ostrich chick grows one foot taller each month
• The ostrich is native to Africa
• Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand.