Välkommen to Lindsborg!

"King Oscar" the Wild Dala Horse

Welcome to the first of my entries about travel, and to "Little Sweden, USA"!  Known for its Swedish heritage, its painted "wild dala horses", and its warm, small-town friendly culture, it was the perfect destination for a short, romantic get-away.

 

My husband and I traveled to Lindsborg last night to stay over in one of the local bed and breakfasts in the town and enjoy the local flavor. On the way we detoured to Coronado Heights, a small outcropping of bluffs overlooking the Smoky Hill River Valley.  The view was, for Kansas, pretty cool... and the castle (built in 1932) was fairly good reproduction of a Spanish Conquistador's fort.  

Apparently in 1541 Coronado himself led an expedition into the great plains of America searching for a mythical wealthy civilization called the Quivira. His guide was likely trying to lead him astray, however, and took him on a wild goose chase!  He ended up in Kansas, finding a people he believed were the Quivira, (likely a native tribe such as the Wichita or Pawnee), but did not find the mythical cities of gold he'd been looking for.  Evidence suggests that the people he wrote about lived near the Lindsborg area, in the Smoky River Valley.  So it was quite  likely that, this being the highest point in the area, the soldier would have stopped here at some point to survey the surrounding area. 

 After our stop at the Heights, we continued to Lindsborg itself.  The town was very picturesque, with your traditional main street lined with shops and painted dala horse statues.  Our reservation was at the Swedish Country Inn.  It was a nice little hotel, modeled after the inns you might find in Sweden itself, in a kind of European style.  We checked in, but headed out right away to eat dinner.

We strolled along main street, stopping to eat at the Jalisco Mexican Restaurant- just around the corner from the inn! The food there was excellent, very much authentic style Mexican food rather than the more common "Tex-Mex" we tend to see in America.  I had a combo platter with an enchilada, a burrito, and a tamale, all of which were wonderful, though the tamale was a little spicy to my taste.  For anyone who's never actually eaten "authentic" Mexican food (and I'm sure it varies from region to region in Mexico, just as food preferences in different states here can be wildly different) in my experience it's actually not heavily spiced.  The beef is seasoned maybe with a little onion, some salt, but not with the chili powder and other spices common in Tex-Mex.  And the sauce on top... mmm!  It's a red sauce, but again not spicy.  It is almost sweet, kind of like a marinara sauce but without the Italian seasoning.  

After dinner, we walked up and down Main Street, ate ice cream cones for dessert, and returned to the inn for the evening.  Our room was quite pretty, definitely continuing the Swedish theme and country-style living.  There was a little tv in one corner, nice wooden shutters over the windows, and a good sized private bath.

One drawback became apparent as we turned out the lights and prepared to sleep, however... the air conditioner had something wrong with it's compressor and would kick on loudly for about 10 seconds every 2-3 minutes!  It did this throughout the entire night, making sleep very difficult!  Then, once we rose in the morning, we were ready for a hot shower and when I turned the handle... no water!! We were concerned that we would have no shower this morning, but luckily my handy husband figured out that the shower head had a valve lever on it that was in the "off" position.  Whew!

Showers taken, we ate breakfast at the Swedish breakfast buffet included in our stay.  It was pretty good (the waffles were to DIE for!!) and we left feeling pretty satisfied.  Overall the Swedish Country Inn was nice, but I would recommend checking the room out for loud air compressors or malfunctioning faucets before you get stuck for the night!!

On leaving the inn we proceeded to explore Lindsborg's historical offerings, but that will be for tomorrow's blog!  To be continued...