The phrase of the day today was "Holy Cannoli." I saw some amazing things today and had some amazing experiences. Even now, I'm sitting in my room, overlooking the Pacific Ocean as the sun is starting to set, drinking a glass of Pinot Noir from Summerland Winery that I visited a couple days ago.
So I started out the morning in Arroyo Grande. The family I was staying with provided a great breakfast to start off the day. Before leaving Arroyo Grande, I had to replace the ice in my cooler (remind me at some point to talk about that process - I'm not sure it's totally working) and fuel up my gas tank and then I headed north up the coast. I stopped at Winery #24 (Harmony Cellars), in this tiny town of Harmony. The guy pouring wine for me told me that the sign that said the population was 18 was incorrect - the real population is actually 25. Honestly. Further north, I stopped at Winery #25 (Moonstone Winery). I was a little early in getting there and they weren't open yet, so I walked up and down Main street of the town (Cambria) a couple times. Super cute town with all sorts of little shops. I loved talking with the people at Moonstone. The woman is a theatre director, so we got to talking all about that. I enjoy people's reaction to my wine tasting journal. It's either confusion, apprehension, or appreciation. It provides a great jumping off point for talking about my road trip too.
Throughout the morning, there was a lot of fog (smog?) low hanging over the hills and the roads as I was driving. It was weird. Anyway, after leaving Cambria, I made my way up towards Hearst Castle. On the way, I saw zebras. What???? Made no sense. I later found out that William Hearst had his own private zoo, and the current zebras there are descendants of those he had in his zoo. They still roam the grounds. Bizarre.
I arrived at Hearst Castle right around 11:45. There are a number of options of what tours you can take. The three available were Grand Rooms, Upstairs Rooms, and Kitchen & Outer Rooms. Each tour is $25 and includes the shuttle ride up to the house, free range to walk throughout the grounds up at the house and a screening of a 40 minute movie about the house. I chose to do both the Grand Rooms and Upstairs Rooms tour. I've mentioned it before, but the benefit of going by myself is fantastic - I'm able to slip into a sooner tour than larger groups. So I didn't have to wait around like a couple of larger groups did for their tours. I took the shuttle up to the house (great views along the way), and started with the Grand Rooms tour. There were about 50 people in our group. We got to see the front entertaining room, the dining room, the morning room, the billiards room, and the home theatre, all part of the original house. Mr. Hearst and his architect (a woman!) spent about 28 years working on the house and it still was not completed by his estimation at the time of his death. It started out as a "little something" and grew and grew and grew. The grand rooms were obviously gorgeous. Mr. Hearst had an incredible collection of paintings, tapestries, statues, ceilings, and all sorts of art. There is very little cohesion within any given room, but it is just loaded with all sorts of STUFF. Priceless artifacts and some more modern items side by side. To purists, it's a little bizarre. This was one of Hearst's many homes - I think at one point he had something like 38 separate homes. He loved to bring a wide array of people up to his house to entertain them. Giant weekend or week-long outings. Clark Gable came to visit something like 45 separate times. Most nights, the evening would end with a movie screening in the home theatre, which is about 5 times larger than my entire apartment.
Immediately after I was done with the Grand Rooms tour, I had my Upstairs Rooms tour. I am always fascinated by the actual people and what day to day life was like, so while the Grand Rooms is great, the Upstairs Rooms was insanely interesting to me. We got to see a ton of guest rooms in many areas of the house, Mr. Hearst's and his companion, Marion Davis's rooms (that were closed to EVERYONE except Mr. Hearst and Ms. Davis while he was alive), the library, and the office. In one room was an Egyptian statue that's estimated to be about 2300 years old. In Mr. Hearst's room is a portrait of the Madonna and child that is estimated to be worth up to $50 million. In the library, there is a collection of maybe 100 vases that are over 2000 years old. This stuff is just incredible. The ceilings are all between 300 and 400 years old and were imported from Spain or Italy. There are tapestries and beautiful artwork everywhere. Seriously amazing. After the second tour was done, I took some time to walk through the grounds. The gardens are beautiful. But what is the most stunning is the pools. There is the large outdoor Neptune Pool and, under the tennis courts, the indoor Roman Pool, which was rarely used. The Neptune Pool is turquoise and white, with statues and columns all around it. The Roman Pool is in a room that is basically one big royal blue mosaic, from the pool floor up to the deck, and climbing up the walls, seamlessly flowing into the yellow and blue ceiling. Holy Cannoli. Seriously.
I don't have much bandwidth here at the lodge where I'm staying, so I can't upload photos, but hopefully I'll be able to upload them soon and I'll put some of the best in a separate post.
I then drove basically right next door to the Hearst Ranch Winery and tasted some great wine there. I also really enjoyed talking with Ray and Ryan about wine, wineries, my trip, charcuterie, and all sorts of stuff. They gave me some great recommendations for further up the road as well. Another couple of miles up the road, I stopped to see the Elephant Seals. At first, I thought there was just a few, but I looked further down the coast, and the beach was just covered with them. They are molting this time of year, and most of them were just laying there, but occasionally, one would throw sand over itself, or stretch, or even move a few feet. It was fascinating. Windy and chilly, but fascinating.
From there, I had about a 45 minute drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. It wasn't nearly as scary as I expected it to be. It was windy, and, at times, right up against the cliff on the coast, but taking it slowly enough, it was fine. We'll see if tomorrow is more of the same or it's more difficult. I do admit, basically any time there was someone behind me, I pulled over and let them pass. I didn't want to feel rushed at all.
Arrived at my lodge for this evening right around 6:00, took some pictures of the ocean, and had dinner at the adjoining restaurant. The sun is about to set (in 7 minutes according to google), and while it's not directly out my window, I'm seeing some really pretty colors blending in with the fog rolling in from the ocean and mingling with the rocky coast line. Absolutely beautiful.
Not very far to go tomorrow, but doing a couple of things that have been highly recommended to me.
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