We drove to the Hearst Castle. Just before arriving, we stopped in Cambria. Most of the towns we went through were rural agriculture communities. Cambria is completely different. It’s the “perfect” tourist town. Downtown is filled with eateries, arts, organic foods, etc. The parking is a great bargain. One can park anywhere for free. This is really good because everything else in town is very expensive. If you are ever in Cambria, I suggest you check out the ice cream / bakery and get a scoop of “motor oil” ice cream. It’s very good.

Normally, tours at Hearst Castle sell out months in advance. Today we could have walked up and purchased tickets for any tour we pleased. Quite frankly, the biggest surprise is that this state park was still open at all. Danita really enjoyed the tour, but I didn’t. So far as I can see, Hearst dumped about half a million dollars a month (in today’s equivalent money) into this rambling complex until he ran out of money. His companies were taken over by the court and restored to financial health. Then we went back into dumping money into this complex. His father didn’t trust him with money and gave the estate to his mother. (Very unusual for the day.) His mother wouldn’t let him start building the complex as long as she was alive. Any sense of coherence was due to Julia Morgan, the first female architect. She did over 500 projects. About 499 of them were on time and below budget.

We took the “back road” from there to Hearst Hacienda. Our tour ran long, it was late in the day, there was a lot of fog, and we had to drive through the mountains on a very narrow, very curvy road. There were two places where I couldn’t see the road and had to guess where the road is. (I’m a good enough guesser, it turns out.) We made it without incident, but Danita was pretty distressed. The Hacienda is on an army base. It’s a wonderful building. We stayed in one of the towers. The room was warm, dry, safe, and clean. But the WiFi didn’t work. Danita said she could see my withdrawal pains.

The army base is quite isolated. The only place we could eat was at the bowling alley. We had loaded hot dogs. How can one possibly have a more American experience than eating loaded hot dogs at a bowling alley on an army base?

All the pictures are from Hearst Castle. Fog prevented any outdoor shots.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.