February 1, 2008

Hello!

San Lois Obispo is on the California coast. We
decided to drive up the California coast in order
to avoid the snow falling in all the National
Parks we intended to visit! We had planned on
going to Bryce, Zion, Yosemite.....guess we have
to do this again next year!

The coastal route was still relatively safe to
drive an RV on! After breakfast at our fine hotel
we got into our very chilly RV and headed north.

First stop - the Hearst Castle. I dont know why I
got intersted in visiting all these American
versions of gluttony, but I simply had to see how
the Hearst Castle compared to the Biltmore.

We were able to drive right in to the huge RV
parking lot, Allie was in heaven. It was the
biggest and best parking lot she has ever seen!
We took a walk for 1/2 an hour and she didnt see
the same thing twice.

Then, into the big dog house she went, so that
the humans could tour the castle. It was very
different than the Biltmore. For one thing, you
had to go on a guided tour, and you had to choose
which guided tour you wanted to go on....lets
see, do we want to go on the tour where we can
see the swimming pools, or the one we can check
out the pantry and kitchen areas, or the one that
has the guest houses and gardens...it became an
easy choice once they told us that tour number 1
had a free IMAX movie with it, on the building of
the Castle, that you could view immediately after
the tour.

I got in trouble first thing on the tour....the
guide was very knowledgable and precise. You must
stay with the group, never leave the group, there
is another guide bringing up the rear. So we made
a stop at the first swimming pool, and while he
was talking about the construction of the pool
and how none of the fruit grown on the estate was
ever to be eaten (it is there for the smell only
- can you imagine me not being apoplectic over
that little statement, after The Community
Kitchen experience?) I went back 15 feet to take
a picture of a statue I thought was pretty - and
all of a sudden I hear, " You must stay with the
group!"

Well, really I didnt know he was talking to me,
after all the bringing up the rear guide was
standing right next to me....and then he said,
"You, with the camera, you must come back to the
group!"...

Well, there I was, contemplating my statue,
fuming about the smelly fruit, thinking about how
I was going to pick as much of it as I could and
bring it to the local Food Bank, when I realized
that he was talking to me! Fortunately, the
bringing up the rear guide was a fiesty little
woman, who snapped back at him, " What, do you
think Im not doing my job? I am bringing up the
rear here! I've got it!" She was very nice to me,
we had a good conversation about the state of the
fruit, I got my picture (which isnt great) and on
we went.

William Randolf Hearst was an interesting guy.
His father was way more interesting - he was a
rough and tumble miner, who lucked into a whole
bunch of silver, carried it on 50 or so mules
over the snow filled mountain passes, married a
young school marm from back home and bought up
every single acre of gorgeous California coast he
could for something like $0.39 an acre.

His only son William grew up wealthy, spent a
bunch of time in Europe with his mother checking
out castles and famous architecture, became a
wealthy businessman in his own right, and then
inherited a fortune, as well as a whole lot of
coastline.

Now here is where I actually liked the story line
progression. William decided to build the castle
of his dreamy youth...and to accomplish that feat
he hired the FIRST woman graduate of engineering
school in the US, who also got a degree in
architecture in Europe. It took them 29 years of
working together to finish the entire project -
which included an exotic animal zoo/preserve with
zebras, bears, elk, tigers, lions, giraffes, and
more; swimming pools with mosaic 1" tile work
that had to have a shallow end added on to it
years after it was done because none of the
famous movie stars liked it, come to find out,
most of them didnt know how to swim!; farm
animals like dairy and beef cattle and pigs to
keep the place as self-sufficient as possible;
and an entire movie theater to see the first
showings of movies he had produced, complete with
movie stars and their entourages invited for the
weekend, with very precise seating arrangements
at dinner.

Pencils in the gift shop cost $1.00 each, but the
farm, which is now a non profit, sells organic
hormone free beef for about $6.00 a pound! After
William died, the family decided to donate the
castle and grounds to the state of California
(excellent tax write off there!) and the Hearst
Corporation, family owned, still controls a lot
of coastline.

Anyway, when we left the Castle grounds, complete
with 4 lbs of steak and 4 lbs of burgers, we saw
some of the wild zebras, decendants of the ones
who were part of the zoo -they were all free
roaming then, and the workers couldnt catch them
all when the zoo animals were donated to local
zoos, so there are several dozen zebras running
around loose on the California coast! I was so
amazed that they were there, I didnt even think
of taking a picture!

We headed north to Elephant Seal Beach. Several
of the people on the tour told us that the seals
and sea otters hang out there at this time of
year, and it was well worth the short walk for
the viewing.

On our drive north to the beach a small herd of
elk leaped across the major highway in front of
the RV, scaring me half to death, but not getting
hit by any cars, trucks or other traffic!

Well, the elephant seals and sea otters took up
about 2 hours of our time - so interesting, so
noisy, so much fun to watch! Allie thought the
sea elephants were beautiful, perhaps because
their girth is actually bigger than hers!

The plan was to get to Big Sur before dark - and
no, that didnt happen....it almost happened! The
campground we were headed for was closed for no
known reason and we had to drive another 29 miles
to the next one....smile! So, yes, it was dark
and we had to back in to the rv space!

More soon!

Love from Mindy, Ken and Allie