Big Sur Weekend

We traveled down to Big Sur over the President's Day weekend with plans to camp at that beautiful campground I showed you a few weeks ago. Alas, the campground was fully booked by the time we got there, but we still had a spectacular time. When we started out from San Francisco, the weather was warm and beautiful all the way down to Monterey. But when we took a right to head out towards the ocean, things started to look a bit more foggy:

I was so nervous that our weather was going to be crappy out at the coast, but we drove a few miles further and got this:

And so on...

The weather broke for us in every good way. It was warm and sunny and generally spectacular. We've driven this strip of coast about 5 times now, and it really never ever gets old. The vistas are breathtaking around every corner, and it's all you can do to try to absorb it and take it all in. The water ranges in color from vibrant turquoise to deep, royal blues with greens here and there when the waves crest. The green hills are always draped in a hint of light fog, making it seem mystical and mysterious. The road itself is completely terrifying, with the lack of guardrails and 500 ft. cliffs to drive off of, but that's why I make Neil drive. I could spend days and days traveling this stretch of earth.

We passed the Kirk Creek campground and saw the "Campground Full" sign, but that's kind of what we expected, so we kept on trucking til we got to the San Simeon State Park campground. It's so much closer to Hearst Castle, that it really made more sense to stay there anyways. We stayed out in the Washburn section of the park, which is the primitive camp, meaning that it only has pit toilets - no regular restrooms with sinks and showers and all those luxuries. It was no skin off our back because we were only staying one night and weren't planning on showering anyways. We got the tent all set up in a jiffy and then it was time to start on the fire. The first thing we noticed when we started setting up the tent was that everything was kind of damp. And when night fell, it just got more and more damp. I think it's honestly the wettest I've been camping when it hasn't been raining. I guess there's just a lot of moisture out there at the coast. Anywhoo, the dampness made starting the fire almost an impossible task. The wood was so damp, and we didn't have an axe to cut kindling, so we went through our first newspaper just trying to get the wood kind of dry enough that it might catch fire. Then we tore some little pieces off of the big wood pieces and used them as kindling and about halfway through the second paper, finally got those pieces on fire. We used up the remainder of the paper keeping the kindling alive until the wood FINALLY caught on fire. Barely. Here is our meager fire:

But, it was enough to heat up our chili and cook our hot dogs, so I can't complain too much. After eating, it seemed kind of silly to huddle around such a meager fire, so we put it out and went to bed around 9 after playing UNO in the tent for awhile.
The next morning we woke up to tent walls dripping with dew and condensation - everything was so wet. And super-duper thick fog outside:

Again, I was afraid we were going to get stuck with a wet, foggy coastal day, but by the time we had breakfast in Cambria and headed out to our 11:00 Hearst castle tour, the weather looked like this:

You have to ride a tour bus up to the top of the hill where the castle is, and the views from the bus are ridiculously spectacular. It was a little hazy down by the water, but up on the hill the skies were crystal clear.

We started our tour at the outdoor pool which is the only part of the tour that I remember from when we came as kids. It made a huge impression on me at that age, as we were REALLY into swimming pools when we were little. We used to scour the KOA campground listings to find the ones that had pools. Really, as an adult it's no different - I still want this pool with all my heart. I guess if you volunteer at least 50 hours for the castle during the year, you get to come to a pool party here once during the year. And if you donate 200 hours, you can bring three friends. This is my new retirement plan. After the pool we headed into the guest houses. There are four of them. The biggest has 10 bedroom and 10 bathrooms. We got to see four of the bedrooms/bathrooms. This was my favorite:

The view out the window was pretty magnificent.

Hearst actually collected ceilings. (pause to let that sink in) CEILINGS. Wow. But they were pretty amazing. This was one in the guest room and it was, I thought, the most beautiful one. I've spared you posting the pictures of all the other ceilings that I took because they were all so lovely. (I'm starting to run out of good adjectives to describe the magnificence of this castle so please bear with me through some more beautifuls/amazings/lovelies.)

We left the guest house and headed towards the main house. I actually didn't think this was quite as pretty on the outside. The guest houses really fit into the landscape nicely, and this big mostrosity sort of sticks out like a sore thumb. But the inside was pretty amazing, so I guess we'll give Hearst a pass.

This was the sitting room inside the main house. This is where all the rich and famous guests gathered for cocktails before dinner time. When dinner was ready, Hearst would descend from his upstairs rooms and lead all of his guests into the dining room.

Said dining room:

Hearst was married but he and his wife separated and then he took a mistress. Apparently, his wife would still come out to the castle when Hearst was entertaining dignitaries but his mistress was always around when they were entertaining everyone else. His wife preferred linen napkins and his mistress like paper napkins, so you could always tell who was hosting by how the table was set. When we were there, the table was set with paper napkins and condiment bottles (ketchup and mustard).

The end of our tour was the indoor pool which the child inside me was longing to jump over the railing into. It's calm, and blue and looks warm and inviting. The detail on the floor of the pool, and of the deck is laid with gold leaf, so we were literally walking on gold. *sigh* I was so sad that the tour was over, I wanted to circle back again and again. There are three other tours that we might go back and check out at another date. We still want to stay at that one campground.

After the tour was over, we headed back into Cambria for lunch, and had great burgers and barbeque at the Main Street Grill. And then it was time to head back to San Francisco. We stopped briefly at the elephant seal lookout. It's hard to see from this picture, but those lumps on the beach are elephant seals. I'll try and find a better picture.

Then we pointed ourselves north and did the Big Sur coast drive backwards. It was still beautiful:

I'm a sucker for a sunset photo.

It was so still, and soft and perfect, I wanted to snuggle up to Neily and sit there forever. But our bed was calling, so we got back in the car and said good-bye to Big Sur. Until next time...

In other, unrelated news, you know those little micro-planes that are absolutely amazing at zesting lemons and shredding cheese? Turns out they are just as efficient at zesting/shredding human flesh. Ouch.