Day 6- 17 Mile Drive, Carmel, Hearst Castle, Pismo Beach

We woke up this morning with a slow start. We got bagels and headed to 17 Mile drive, a scenic route that has little land marks along the way that a map that explains them. Mostly the stops are outlook areas of the view or golf courses. We were running a bit late so we didn't stop at them all but we did stop at a couple outlooks and bird rock--a big rock with birds all over it and we know there were sea lions somewhere because we could hear them but we couldn't see them. It was really fun to have the top of the car down while we drove through the 17 miles. We then drove through Carmel which has adorable shops!
We then began which we didn't realize would be the longest part of our day--driving to Hearst Castle. We again were on route 1 and once again Jen gets a big gold star for her driving today. We had no idea how long it takes to drive on route 1. Between the constant curves causing you to need to slow down to about 20MPH or less and all the tourists who are driving unbelievably slow even in the straight areas of the road (come on people how many pictures of the same view can you take?) it takes forever! We had already called and moved our tour of the castle back an hour but still that time came and went and we were still on route 1. About 3 miles from where we were supposed to turn off to arrive, I saw all these people standing on the side of the road and figured it was more of the same but peaked over anyway to see and yelled "pull over!" They were looking at elephant seals, lots of them! We parked and walked over to the other people, the elephant seals were only about 30 feet away and there were probably about 40 of them. Now I don't know if it was because we had been driving for so long or if they were really that funny but these animals cracked us up!! We giggled and laughed the entire time we watched them!! They were so funny looking and they would kick sand up on themselves with their little fins. The boy seals..ok they were called seals but looked more like walrus'..anyway the boy ones would stand up tall and let out this noise that kind of sounded like a long burp. They would squiggle around to move about and oh they had these noses that just looked obscene. They were exactly what we needed to laugh off some pent up stress of driving on the scary/long/crowded/exhausting road. We stood there for as long as we could without freezing (about 5 minutes, we were in shorts and it was cooold) and then continued on to the castle.
The GPS had said it would take about an hour and a half from the 17 mile drive to get there but we left at 12pm and arrived at Hearst castle at 4:15pm. Our tour time was at 3:40pm. We went into the visitor center to see what they would say, thinking we probably missed our chance to see the castle but the lady said a bus is leaving in a couple minutes, go ahead and we will sqeeze you in. PHEW. We ran to the bathroom and boarded our bus where we listened to Alex Trebec start our tour by telling us about Willy Hearst as a boy and the mountain we were traveling up to get to the castle which Hearst had owned and where he used to have the largest privately owned zoo filled with giraffs and polar bears and all kinds of animals. We soon arrived at the castle which was very pretty and started our tour of the Grand rooms. The tour guide had obviously been doing this job for a veryy long time (26 years he later told us) and seemed more like an actor very enthusiastically leading us through the main floor. He told some interesting stories about how Hearst was married but his wife lived somewhere else and how his girlfriend, Marion Davies, is who he spent his time with and then it got complicated about how he borrowed money from her at one point when he went in debt but when he died he left her all his money and estate but she gave it back to his family with the condition that her name be on it as well..I don't know it was complex but it was a pretty neat love story..well except for the wife who really was barely talked about, her name is Millicent (yikes) is all I remember. In the dining room we learned about some of the famous people that came to his parties but I couldn't hear it all because of this screaming 3 year old next to us..finally a security person showed the father and child to the exit, phew. At the end of the tour we watched this little video from back when Hearst was alive of clips of him at his parties and Marion and their guests and such, it was neat to be able to put faces to the names. We were able to look around outside then. There was this huge outdoor pool which the tour guide said that the people who worked there actually still were allowed to use. They had just had this huge party for a retiring coworker at the pool and around it.
We then headed back, loaded up and headed an hour to Pismo Beach. We passed the Madonna Inn but were both too exhausted to stop today. We arrived at our hotel which is very pretty and right on the beach. We then headed out in search of dinner, we drove all around this neat area which we will have to explore tomorrow and ended up at Marie Calendar's restaurant. We don't know if the restaurant came first or the frozen meals..chicken and egg situation to us but it was very good! We were practically falling asleep in our food though so we ended up with alot of leftovers and headed back to sleeeeep!

Side Note:
it is extraordinarily difficult to be on a trip where you don't just sleep on the long car rides, pay only for souvenirs, and complain about being hungry until you are fed. We would like to just say holy moly Dad, how did you do all this with 2 kids?? This trip has been AWESOME so far but very exhausting and stressful at times also. Thank you for all the work and time you put into making our family trips so flawless and fun!

Optimismss:
-it's amazing what you are willing to eat when you've spent as much as we have on food so far..we were actually looking for a McDonald's for dinner
-not only is it cold so far in Pismo beach but it is also really foggy and kind of misty
-why is there not an elevator to our floor?? we are down 2 flights of outdoor stairs which we had to lug all our stuff down
-while it is a pretty view..we're basically over route 1
-why are there instuctions about staying safe while in the area as well as siren information displayed?

Bird Rock

Driving on Route 1

Elephant Seals

These pictures do not do them justice to show how funny they looked!

Hearst Castle

Dining Room- Hearst always sat right in the middle of the table and Marion always sat right across from him. They had guests such as young JFK, the president at the time, presidents of other countries, Amelia Earhart, comedians, actors, pretty much everyone famous at the time.

Room for after dinner drinks.

Awesome outdoor pool that they people who work at the castle got to have a party at the week before.

View from the castle.