Coastal Adventure - Part I, Hearst Castle

I've been busy, y'all.  The last month has been a whirlwind.  There was Easter to prepare for, seeds to plant, trees to cut down, and a little getaway to go on.

My friend C and I have been talking about going on a trip to Solvang for a few years now.  After rescheduling a couple of times, we finally made it happen.

The plan was, leave Easter afternoon, stay in San Simeon overnight, go to Hearst Castle, then head down to Solvang for a couple of days.  We mostly stuck to this plan, except that we left a few hours later than planned, decided to detour through Monterey for dinner, and accidentally wound up taking Highway 1 to San Simeon (thanks, GPS).  This meant that I was driving THISCLOSE to the edge of an ocean cliff for about three or so hours until 1 a.m.  Lots of prayer and loud music.

We arrived safely, thank God, and although the hotel staff was rather surly at 1 a.m. (who isn't, though?), our budget hotel room was really nice.  The next day dawned a pearly gray, and after a free waffle breakfast at the hotel, we hit Hearst Castle.

Click through for photos and all the Shan-ified narration.



The bus ride up to the castle didn't make me want to die, like I thought it would.  When we arrived atop the hill, the sun was shining on the castle and the hills in all their glory.

It was all I hoped it would be.

It also made me want to go home and do yard work and plant climbing roses everywhere and put as many Grecian statues in my yard as possible.  Maybe just the first two things, although if anyone can rock a Grecian statue in their yard, I'd venture to say it's me.

If you look close up, the guy on top of this fountain is gold and buck nekkid.  So don't look close up.

Fuchsia envy.

Also, I want a lily pond. Or as it would be known in my yard, a mosquito factory.

Inside the main house...

I'm pretty sure this table is available at HomeGoods and/or Pier 1 and/or Cost Plus.  Just sayin'.

Grecian statue sighting #9 or so

"We are here to view the tapestries."
"Teppestriees?...Zis iss a castle and vee haf many teppestriees."

(C used the first line as an awesome hashtag on one of our Instagram photos, and it's still making me laugh.)
 

Maybe this angel thingie is what that blank spot on my fireplace needs.  And hey, there's my finger.

Got caught following C like a paparazzo.

Garden selfie

Reminiscing about our trip to Puerto Rico five years ago, during which we always ended up in front of a similar fountain, no matter where we went.

Neptune Pool envy.  Grecian statue sightings #237-952 (approx.).  It was drained for conservation activities, but it was still beautiful.

I do this weird thing when I travel, in which I interact with statues like they're real things (or make other people do it) and take photos of it.  It's my thing.  I enjoy it. I don't see it stopping any time soon.

  Grecian statue sighting #...oh I lost count.  Nice fig leaf, bro.

There's another one.

The Roman Pool was the main/only reason I wanted to go to Hearst Castle.  It was glorious.

I never wanted to swim so badly in my life.

We were pretty glutted on beauty by that point, so we opted to head down the mountain and continue to the next phase of our journey.

Sadly, I forgot my camera, so all our trip shots were taken with my iPhone camera, which isn't awful, but isn't the greatest.  I omitted a lot of the indoor shots.  The lighting was terrible in there.

Next up, Part II, Adventures in Solvang.