Poe, a Poet

Poe, a poet, placed a raven in a poem with skill engraven
But the poem was much too morbid for a cheerful one like me.
Death of beauty, says the poet, is the best, and you should know it;
I like life of beauty, so it's not so certain I agree.
Life of beauty is the best, and so I have to disagree
          Death's not all it's cracked up to be.


Poe's rhymes are the best around; in fact, they're always marv'lous
          soundin',
But this makes it difficult to write a perfect parody.
Fortunately, I'm not writing parodies, I am just chiding
E. A. Poe on his abiding melancholy melody.
'Tis a very much abiding melancholy melody,
          Singing so unhappily.

Poe may like his subject matter. I, for one, would be much gladder
Reading something pleasanter than Poe's poems will ever be.
However, I must admit, his poems are better far than this is,
But I'm not a poet; there is quite a lot 'tween him and me.
Since I'm not a poet, he is better than I'll ever be
          But I see life more happily.

(It's not perfectly in the meter of the Raven, but I did the best I could.)

Vacation in Solvang

I got back last night from vacation in Solvang with my family. I've never been there before, but I had a lot of fun. We left Wednesday afternoon and arrived in Buellton about 5:15 PM, where we had dinner with some old friends of my parents at a great restaurant called A.J. Spurs. It was rather expensive, but it was worth it. We stayed in Lompoc for the night.

In the morning, we headed out to Mission La Purisima. We stopped by the Visitor Center:














We also saw some other interesting sites around the mission. Once we were finished looking around, we took a short hike up to a cross on the hill:














My dad took a great picture of a butterfly perching on a plant stem.














We spent some time walking around Solvang in the afternoon. The next morning, we rented a Surrey quadricycle for an hour and explored a bit more. We rode past the big windmill,


















and went through a few more shops


















before driving to Quicksilver Ranch to see miniature horses.


























In the afternoon, we drove down to Santa Barbara and had lunch at the Montecito Cafe, a 3-diamond restaurant in Montecito on the southern border of Santa Barbara. It was quite nice. :) Then, we took a short walk along the Santa Barbara pier before heading home. All in all, it was a very good three-day trip.