Castles In The Air

From Bakersfield, we followed the Coastal Highway north via Hearst Castle. Hearst Castle, built by William Randolph Hearst and now a national monument is a huge property comprising a number of structures including the main house, some guest houses, a huge outdoor pool, an indoor pool which is just as big, gardens and goodness knows what else. It is at around 1600' elevation and only about a mile from the coast so the views should be wonderful. Regrettably, we were in the clouds the whole time so did not see much of the estate. Jenny and I took one of the four tours but unfortunately, the weather was terrible – it rained the whole time. The "castle" is about five miles from the Visitors Centre on a road that winds its way steeply up the side of the hill. Jenny didn't like the trip much - nor the trip back down. The ride from Hearst Castle north was in dreadful weather along the Pacific Coast Road that had lots of sharp curves and at times climbed very high along bluffs on the coast. Again, this was not a favourite part of the trip for Jenny, not helped by knowing that Ric's visibility in the driving rain was pretty marginal at times. We stopped in Gilroy for the night, soaked to the skin despite our wet weather gear.

The weather was better for our brief journey to San Francisco and we checked in to a really nice hotel the AmeriSuites at Fremont, about 50 miles out of San Francisco.

We are having troubles uploading photos just now so keep checking and we'll get them uploaded as soon as we can.