So seeing as after twelve years I'm sporting a new car and it was my BD weekend the skiing in Big Bear was followed by a drive up the California coast to Moonstone Bay in Cambria.
It was another gas tank of gas, trip...well just about. Out of anxiety my husband filled up before I could eak out the last drips of gas to prove my "theme"so I'm not 1005 sure but just about.
The coast is beautiful and well worth the escape. The air fills your lungs as the city shrinks in your rearview mirror. There are many hotel/motel type places that aren't expense up in the area and its popular with Hearst Castle visitors, which we became.
The area is pretty and there are a number of good restaurants in the area. The trout and the caramel ganache thingy for dessert at The Black Cat Bistro were ten out of ten, as was the waiter. The atmosphere was very nice except for the overweight gentleman with the sinus issues snorting and clearing phlegm from his throat every forty-five seconds (I kid you not!) If he and his date, who was clearly deaf or immune to his gurglings, had not arrived towards the end of our dessert I'm would have been in peril of stepping out of my British reserve and screamed, "Take your disgusting snottiness outside to make those gag inducing noises!" Before stabbing him in the throat with my ganache covered fork.
Hearst Castle is....well...interesting I guess. He was clearly a very interesting man and I think I would have got on very well with him. The "Castle" however, and I'm not just saying this because I'm British...well not entirely, is NOT a castle. It's a concrete building that has been designed and decorated to be a faux castle. Each room is decorated with art, ceilings, wall pieces and fixtures clearly pillaged from Europe after the war and shipped to New York before being bought up by Hearst.
I say its interesting because the man inherited more money than god and spent it as and when he pleased. If he liked it he bought it. If he thought two pieces looked good together regardless of whether they went together he had them created into one piece. Like I said I think I'd have liked the guy. That being said it felt a little like a movie set, almost authentic but not quite.
My main issue and I get that it probably costs a lot in up keep, but the three tours they run all cost twenty-five dollars each. So although there is a discount if you book all three tours, you're still looking at about sixty-five dollars (ish) to see the entire place. For what you get it's a little steep. After doing the upstairs tour and the grounds, my thought is that one tour gives you enough of an idea of the place that you really don't need the other two. However if you never plan to go anywhere in the world where there are real castles you might as well spend the extra.
We thought about stopping in Solvang to step back into a weird dutch time but passed in lie of getting home in time for the "Good Wife."
As far as gas tank trips go I think the California coast is worth it every time.
(And FYI I'm not prove reading all of my posts so forgive the typos.)
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