If you ever pass through the small coastal town of Sam Simeon (halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on Highway 1, I definately suggest you stop by and take a tour of Hearst Castle. The question is: Which tour? The estate is so large (Currently, it's100,000 acres. It was previously 250,000), that it's split up into four seperate tours. Tour One is suggested for first-time visitors, and it's well worth the time and cost.

Walking past the Neptune Pool and towards the eighteen-room guest house, a thick white fog hovered through the premises, creating quite a mystical experience. It obscured the gorgeous view of the town below and the ocean beyond, but I think it was much more... well... cooler seeing it like that.

We were taken through several rooms, in both the guest house and one of the main buildings. Everything was imported from overseas and Hearst, being such an obsessive collector, owned items there were and still are beyond priceless. One partiulcar Venus-type statue, sitting in the corner of a room with seemingly no spotlighted importance to it, retailed for $12 million dollars in 1956. Roman columns, doors and windows surrounded in 23 karat gold, silverware purer than sterling, tennis courts, a bowling alley, movie theater, flower gardens, the largest privately owned zoo filled with exotic animals, at least two swimming pools... all this was once owned by William Randolph Hearst on this estate, the second largest in North America (The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina is the largest, but Hearst had a lot more fun with his money).

Only the most special people were invited as guests, the likes of which included Cary Grant and Charlie Chaplin, who were both repeated visitors. However, they all had to abide by very specific rules. (e.g., no profanity could be used on the estate, unmarried couples had to stay in different guest houses, etc.)

If any rules were broken, you were told to pack up your bags and walk back into town, unable to return. However, if you decided to play by the rules, you could stay for as long as you'd like. The shortest visit was about four hours. The longest lasted two years. If you did get an invitation, consider yourself lucky. It would be the only one you'd ever get. If you turned it down, you would never be allowed permission to visit the estate. That was your only shot.

For more info on the Castle, visit the offical website at hearstcastle.org.

I left the Hearst Castle close to 1 pm, and realized I had at least six hours left to drive until I get to San Francisco. Thanks to several construction jobs along Highway 1 and a few stops of my own, it took nine hours.

As I passed through Santa Cruz (about an hour south of San Francisco), I stopped at The Mystery Spot, one of a dozen or so such places in the United States. For a four dollar admission fee, you get a tour of the unusual area where the laws of physics don't seem to apply. Using a leveler to show us that everything was on the up and up, things still happened that can't really be explained. I saw a ball seemingly roll itself uphill, people growing and shrinking in relation to each other when trading spaces only a few feet apart, and I was able to stand at about a 40 degree angle without falling over. I usually have a pretty open mind to things of this nature, but something didn't seem entirely kosher here. Maybe it's all one big elaborate optical illusion. Maybe it's not. I don't think we'll ever know.

I feel I should re-emphasize how wonderful the drive is from Los Angeles to San Fran (or vice versa, I suppose). If you're planning on travelling between these two cities by car or bus, it's the only way to go. But make sure you plan two days for the trip (unless you start at dawn and barely stop), and keep in mind that there might well be construction going on. There were several spots where it was single lane one-way traffic, which made my trip oh so much more entertaining. Ah, the joys of driving.

See you on the road...

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