New Year's Trip 2001-2002 - PCH to Hearst Castle

Sunday, Dec 23, 2001 - Pacific Coast Highway to Hearst Castle

After our tardiness and beverages of the night before, "morning" did not happen quite as early as I had hoped. In affirmation of how badly out of shape I let myself get in New York, I took my dad's dog Benz for a run around the hills of Monterey. More precisely, Benz dragged me around for a painful half an hour. Last time we went for a similar run, I was one doing the towing.

Breakfast with the folks was followed by Sam showing me a newly acquired driving game for his Playstation. It was a driving game, and even though I chose a course around downtown Manhattan, I was thoroughly trounced. It takes practice to remain competitive with the Nintendo generation - there's some catching-up to do now.

Amie and I set off on very scenic route of Highway 1 (aka Pacific Coast Highway) to our first stop - a stroll by the coastline at Point Lobos. It was my first time on this beautiful piece of coastline. On my dad's apt recommendations, we headed to the southernmost point and hiked from there towards China Point. There were seals and otters playing in the water nearby while the sun reflected off the cliffs. A large storm was starting to brew way off the coast, but the only symptoms present at Point Lobos was large waves that would crash over the huge rocks and the cliff sides sending up huge walls of water over them which dissolved into a misty spray. After such a wave crashed ashore, it left behind a short-lived mini-rainbow to mark its departure.

There were few people at the extreme edge of Point Lobos where we went - most folks tended to stay closer to the park entrance. Too bad for them. They missed out on Bird Island - a small offshore island where flocks of birds perched and took flight occasionally. We watched them from our hike on the shore. The only down side through all this beauty was that our intent to go on a beach stroll was foiled by the closure of the beaches. It was perhaps fortuitous in a way, though, as Amie remembered upon our return to the car that we left our ski jackets at my dad's place in Monterey. Even though she was not feeling well, memory did not fail, and that was very fortunate. Forget the scenic route - we jammed back to Monterey, picked up the jackets.

Retracing the scenic section of Highway 1 south of Monterey for the third time that day, we set off for our 3:10 pm tour at Hearst Castle. What lay between us and our goal was 90 miles of the most gorgeous windy road, possibly in all the world, the Pacific Coast Highway. As was eluded to above, Amie was not feeling her best already, and being rather motion-sick, she did not truly enjoy the beauty passing by her passenger window. It was my only serious stint of driving during the entire trip (thanks Amie!). We had tickets for the last tour of Hearst Castle (all later ones were sold out), so I was motivated to get there on time. To balance the situation, Amie was trying to get me to drive as slowly as I could to avoid getting more motion-sick. We achieved a sort of middle ground of driving fast on straights, and slow on turns. Unfortunately, this did not help Amie as much as had been hoped, and she did not really enjoy the Hearst Castle tour as much as she could have. :(

We pulled up to the parking lot at Hearst Castle and got our bus with not a minute to spare. Literally. The line boarding the bus for the 3:10 tour was already mostly boarded when we made it there to shove our way past the 3:20 folks and get on. But we were not to be denied!

Having heard a lot of stories about Hearst Castle on both the positive and the negative sides, I did not know quite what to expect. The end result was in line with many folks' recommendations - the tour is something you really should do once, but once is enough. William Hearst's father was a classic 49er during the California gold rush. He got lucky by finding a silver strike in his 40s, married a 20-year old, and used his fortunes to purchase lots of land on the central California coast, among them a small hill with wonderful views of the Pacific Ocean that they called Camp Hill. William set off on a European adventure for a year with his mom when he was 10 and acquired a taste for things old and European. William established himself as a newspaper printing powerhouse to extend his fortune, and established several lavish residences. His mom knew William to be obsessive and would not let him build on his favorite site - Camp Hill - in her lifetime as she thought he'd get addicted. Proving motherly wisdom, she was totally right.

When Hearst was in his 50s, his mother passed away, and he hired one the most prolific architects of the time, Julia Morgan (one of the first women in the field as well, and as Amie points out, a civil engineer - a fact that was mentioned only once during the entire tour ;). Their mission was to build a small house on top of the hill. More than two decades and countless changes later, one of the grandest mansions on the West Coast was being constructed. It underwent many changes, mostly additions, and is now a state park. From his love of things old and mostly European, Hearst purchased warehouses worth of antiques, many of which shaped the castle, such as the Roman facade in front of his outdoor pool. Most of this imported art and decorations were purchased from the comfort of home through auction catalogs in the days of no import dues or quotas, when the countries of origin were anxious to sell.

Speaking of pools, the house had two of them. An outdoor one, the biggest heated outdoor pool in the world in its day, and an indoor one with tiles inlaid one by one by 3 men for over 8 years. They are pictured below. Sadly, theories of the day had water pegged as a disease-carrying medium, so very few of the guests had the inclination or even the skill to swim in them. But lounging around the outdoor pool was a very popular activity, as were romantic rendezvous at the dark indoor ones.

This being my first tour, I enjoyed it a good bit. Amie had seen it before when she was young, and was not in much mood to enjoy it. But even she appreciated the holiday decor present throughout the inside of the mansion. As the date was quickly approaching Christmas, there were special holiday decorations throughout the castle including a couple of trees in the fireplace room and lots of red and green throughout.

The tour of the grounds was really a "tour" and I did feel somewhat herded with my tour group, onto the bus, from the bus through the grounds, back onto the bus and down the hill. I wished for some time to wander the grounds, appreciate some of the artwork, and see the sunset, but was denied. We ended up seeing sunset beside telescopes mounted in the parking lot for viewing the castle from below. On the upside of the tour, they had developed an IMAX movie about the story and construction of the Hearst Castle that was quite good. If you have not been to the castle since the movie, go see it. Here some more pictures from the castle.

It had been a long day with many miles covered already, and we did not know how much further we could drive before tiring. We turned East and drove as far as we could. Heading through the Ba- cities of California - Bakersfield, Barstrow, and Baker. The miles were quickly being put behind us, and we decided not to stop until reaching Nevada. This we quickly did, just after crossing the state line at, well, Stateline, NV. I know there's a Stateline by Lake Tahoe as well, so I don't understand how a state can have two towns named Stateline. What this one had was the cheapest hotel I have ever stayed at in the U.S. - $16.95 for a quite reasonable hotel room for two for a night at Whiskey Pete's. That was our last stop on the way the lavish capital of neon, Las Vegas.

Next: Las Vegas