Hearst Castle Tour 3

On Saturday we took our final tour of the castle. It had rained most of the night and was still sprinkling that morning. We were really hoping by the time we headed up to the castle the rain would be gone since we didn't want to get soaked. When we got to the visitor center the rain had cleared! I think I even made a Facebook comment about how mother nature must be smiling on us! What I wasn't thinking about was the fact that the weather is much different at the top of the hill than it is at the bottom of the hill. Duh! It rained on us when we first got off the bus, but it wasn't too bad. Just cold!

There are many parts of the castle that are unfinished. Hearst's health was failing him so he left the castle to live in Los Angeles to get better care. He was supposed to go back to the castle and continue on with his vision but he never got better and died about 4 years after leaving San Simeon. He died at the age of 88 which for that time period was very very old. Back in Hearst's time the average male only lived to the age of 56! Here is the unfinished grand stair case. I'm sure if he could have finished it, it would have been beautiful.

And guess what we got to see again........That's right, my favorite pool!

I didn't realize until looking at the pictures that Lance took that tour 3 was clearly the tour of light fixtures! Lance cracks me up!

There are more pictures of lights trust me, I just decided to only add 4 to the blog! :)

In one of the last rooms we were in, we looked out the window and noticed this beautiful sight.

The sun was finally coming out! On our last tour. As the bus was heading down the hill. I think I shall call that a case of Murphy's Law!

Love,
Suzanne

Hearst Castle Tour 2

We did tour 2 on the same day we did tour 1, but boy was the weather different! When we got off that bus we about froze! It was so cold we could see our breath and that doesn't happen to us SoCal kids very often! I think I mentioned on the last post that every tour stops at the indoor pool. Well, every tour also stops at the outdoor pool. And being that we just saw the outdoor pool on the last tour, and now we were completely and totally freezing, we just wanted to get inside! But, we managed to snap some more pool shots!

The fog is coming! The fog is coming!

Well.....the fog is here! See what I mean about our view from tour 1!These next few shots are from the tour of things Lance found interesting.

This next picture is of Hearst's bedroom. It's actually really small. I guess since he had hundreds of other rooms to hang out in he didn't feel the need to have a big bedroom!I'm not sure if other people do it, but when I walk around the castle, I look at each bedroom and think to myself, which one would I pick if I lived here. Ever since I was a little girl it has been this room. This room is awesome. It's at the top of one of the towers and it's a round room. I have a thing for round rooms. I wish when you fill out questionnaires about what kind of house you are looking for, they had a section for round rooms. Because I would check that box every time! Of course I would probably need to redecorate slightly since the statue overlooking the bed is a bit creepy!

On tour 2 we also got to see the kitchen! All the food you may see in the pictures is plastic. They said they go through and clean the plastic food about once a year. That was just an FYI for you, it maybe a Jeopardy question tonight or something!

I may have spotted another dork taking a picture of himself! hahahahaAnd to finish off the tour 2 photos, here is another one of the indoor pool. This one gives you a great look at the diving platform. It's so awesome! I wanted to run right over and jump in! See what I mean about crazy tourists!!!

All 3 of us really enjoyed tour 2. Mostly I think because we had such an awesome tour guide. Our tour guide has been giving tours in the castle for 30+ years. He's been to every room in the castle (a lot of the rooms are closed off to the public) and has interviewed countless stars from Hollywood's past. All who have been guests at the castle during Hearst's time. The hour and a half we got to spend with him was really not enough. He was a walking encyclopedia of Hearst Castle knowledge and had such interesting stories. And he's jumped off the diving platform shown above, so he's a hero in my book!

Love,
Suzanne

Hearst Castle Tour 1

Friday after Lance's birthday we had breakfast at this very cute breakfast place called The Coffee Pot in Morro Bay. It was pretty cold and dreary that morning so we were hoping when we got up to the castle we would have a good view. The view up from the top of the hill is absolutely spacacular. This was definitely one of those things I remembered from my previous trips up to the hilltop and I was silently sending good thoughts to mother nature pleading for the rain clouds to move through so Lance and Wendy would get to witness the beauty of it all.

You park down at the visitor center and they have an observation area there where you can look up and see the castle. It's a 5 mile bus ride from the visitor center to the castle. Look closely at the top of the picture and you might be able to make it out.

When we got up to the hilltop castle we had a decent view. Not as good as if the sun was shining, but at least we could see the water. And what we didn't know is that this was going to be our best view of all 3 tours. It was still a breath taking view though!

These next few pictures are of the Neptune pool. This has to be my most favorite part of the whole castle. I love this pool. I've decided if someone ever gives me tons and tons of money, I am going to splurge on a pool just like the one Mr. Hearst built. The only thing I would change would be adding a diving board (which he actually had but the State of California has removed it. Probably for fear that some crazy tourist would run on it and jump in the pool....I'm just sayin!). When we got to the top of the hill, I was holding the camera and I started taking a few pictures of different things. Then it dawned on me! I gave the Lance the camera and told him to take pictures of things he thought were super cool. It was really fun every night to view the pictures he took and talk about them. I love seeing things through the eyes of someone who has never been! It sure does make the experience that much more exciting. Here are a few snapshots of things Lance found particularly interesting.

Every tour you go on takes you to the Neptune pool and the indoor pool. The indoor pool is absolutely beautiful as well. I remember as a kid taking the tours with my twin sister Cat discussing if we would rather have the indoor pool or the outdoor pool (like either was ever really a possibility, but hey, kids can dream can't they! And darnit we were dreaming big!). Finally in 2002 when I made this trip with my girlfriends I decided on the outside pool. But, I'm still in love with the indoor pool too. And here is why

The gold pieces are actual gold! So if you could go swimming in there you would actually be swimming in a gold plated pool! Sweet!Lance tried to be sneaky and take a picture of us on the way back down to the visitor center. And here is what you get when we know you are coming with the camera.....dorks!

There are a bunch of other pictures that hopefully this weekend we will get up loaded to Flickr. When we do I will put the link on the page so if you so desire, you can click through and see the other pictures that I didn't post.

Love,
Suzanne

Lance's Birthday

February is Lance's birthday month. As sometimes happens in my birthday month (December, birthday and Christmas) we celebrated his birthday, with the Valentine's Day holiday. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do for the February celebration and I decided to take him to a place I have been a million times as a kid. If I was prepared (which I'm not) I would have scanned some of those pictures from my childhood and posted those as well. Maybe someday that will happen....maybe. So, for Lance's birthday I told him I was taking him to see Hearst Castle and we would be staying in Morro Bay. I knew he would love Hearst Castle because he just loves all the history behind it. And for goodness sakes he watches the history channel all of the time he probably knows everything there is to know about that place anyway. But still, I thought he would enjoy seeing it for himself. He was very excited when I told him where we would be going. We decided to see if our friends Wendy and Suzy wanted to come along with us. We started planning this trip back in November. When we were planning, Wendy and Suzy didn't have this little guy.They got Nelson in January and if any of you have ever had a puppy, you probably know how much love and attention they need. Suzy ended up staying home and puppy sitting. Isn't she just the most adorable thing ever?!?!?!

We all took Lance's birthday off work and headed out of town. I told Lance and Wendy not to expect anything fancy in Morro Bay. It is really a small town sea village and if they were expecting the Ritz, they weren't going to get it here! But that being said, it's really a nice town. And the hotel we stayed in was clean and very close to where we wanted to be!

When we first arrive into town, we checked in and started off sight seeing. We ran into a photo spot that I actually have a bunch of pictures of Cat and I standing in front of. So of course, I posed for a picture again.....just a few years older!

This next picture of the big rock is Morro Bay Rock. Their claim to fame I would say. This is actually the view we had from our hotel room!

The city of Morro Bay also has this huge chess board. You can rent life size chess pieces. None of us play chess, so we opted out of renting the pieces and just acted like silly tourists standing on the chess board instead!

The emphasis on silly!

The sillyness continued when we ran into a pirate statue. Wendy and I were supposed to look like the Captain Morgan pirate, but instead, I look like I'm trying to keep myself from busting up laughing, and Wendy looks like she's not quite sure what the Captain Morgan pirate looks like!

That night we drove into San Luis Obispo for Lance's birthday dinner. We decided on a place that is kind of like Benihana if you are familiar with that. We weren't all that thrilled with some of their food, but their sushi was excellent! As you can see!

After our meal the waitress said can you stay for the birthday song. Being that we hadn't even received our bill yet, I would have figured that was a given. But, we said of course we'd love to hear the birthday song. Lance for some odd reason wasn't as enthused about the birthday song as we were. Well, let me tell you. It wasn't really a birthday song. It was more of a lights go out, strobe light goes on, screeching whistles scream from the speakers and techno style music starts playing as all the employees start screaming and yelling. Oh my goodness, if I could have gotten this on video I would have won some money somewhere. The best part I'm sure were our faces as we could not figure out what was going on. Now, this restaurant is not that big. So everyone gets to "enjoy" this minute of chaos every time it happens.

If you look up at the top of the picture right behind the exit sign, you can see the strobe light going off. It was completely and totally hilarious! One of the most obnoxious restaurant birthday moments I think I've ever been witness to. And I sure am glad it was Lance's birthday and not mine!

Happy birthday my love!

More to come from Morro Bay and Hearst Castle in the next few days!

Love,
Suzanne

Happy New Year....2 months later!

Well, happy 2010! And since Valentine's day is just a few days away, Happy Valentine's Day as well! =) I wanted to get the NYE post done so I could post this weekend about our awesome get away for Lance's birthday! I've also noticed that some of my pictures on previous posts have little red x's on them now. :( I'm not sure why, but hopefully this weekend I will have some time to investigate!

So, NYE was held at our house this year. Normally our friends Marlana and Adrian hold the festivities at their house, but they are remodeling this year so we offered up our place. It actually worked out well since Marlana had to work at 5am on Jan 1st so they were able to leave early and go to bed. AAHH, I remember the days where we stayed up all night on NYE and then we all went into our Disney shifts at 4 or 5 in the morning with no sleep. We were much younger then. Now, we value our sleep! I'm starting to get that whole "older and wiser" saying! :)

I love this group so much, and I love bringing in the new year with them. I think this is our 5th year of getting together. This year Marlana just told us she was pregnant so we are all excited that next year we will have the first peanut of the group join us. This get together is also great because every year we all show up in our PJ's! No glitz and glamour for us, it's all about comfort!

We played some games, watched Travis Pastrana jump his car over the Long Beach harbor and watched Dick Clark's Rockin Eve to see the ball drop. It was a really good time!

2009 was a very interesting year. It was a year most people want to forget. 2009 though for Lance and I is and always will be the year we got married. We chose to leave 2009 keeping only the happiest of memories in our mental scrapbook. Our wedding and the birth of our niece Ella. We won't forget 2009 for all the happiness it has brought us, but we also won't forget 2009 for all the stress and hurt it brought to so many others. We've learned a lot from this year. We are grateful for this year. And we hope that the years ahead will only get better and better!

Love,

Suzanne