The Turn Eastward

Today we left Santa Barbara and drove north towards Hearst Castle, San Simeon, which was our major destination of the day. We stopped off to see the mission of San Luis Obispo and made another stop at Harmony Winery. I bought three bottles and had them shipped home, which proved to be a major headache because they didn't delay delivery as I had asked; they shipped them immediately. UPS wouldn't leave them because there were specific instructions not to leave them in the sun. I finally had them left at my brother's office. So I'm getting phone calls during my vacation because these folks didn't delay delivery as I requested!

Anyways -- as I was saying-- after the winery we took a few shots along the Pacific Coast Highway, which we had originally planned to take to San Francisco. After our afternoon on one California freeway, however, we all decided to forego the major cities of SF and LA for more natural scenery. We opted to turn east and head towards Sequoia and Yosemite, which turned out to be one of our smarter decisions.

We spent a few hours at San Simeon and visited the gardens, the guest house, the pool and a few of the rooms, but for $24.00 we all thought we should have seen the entire place. I was amazed at the ancient Greek and Egyptian artifacts that Hearst had purchased legally. Today, there are laws against the sale of such antiquities. We then left and headed easterly, with a sense of sadness, for it seemed we had reached the halfway point of our journey, and the view of the ocean from Hearst Castle was our last view of the Pacific.

We crossed mountains and entered a valley of vineyards on the left and the right, as far as the eye could see. The vineyards gave way to huge groves of trees, which we found out were pistachio and almond trees. We stopped at a store and bought some of both and learned that this store was the last stop James Dean made before his fatal accident 25 miles down the road. We live in peanut country and were shocked that the folks in this part of the country call our wonderful peanuts "dirt nuts." Of course, I know peanuts are not true nuts at all, but they used to be one of the biggest cash crops in our farming community.

We ate supper at Jack's Roadhouse in Kettleman, CA, where I had the most audacious meal so far: chicken fried steak, baked potatoes, greens, and a big chunk of cornbread. It was a diner/gift shop/local hangout, but the food was good and plentiful. We made it to our Best Western in Lamoore, which was not too far from Sequoia National Park. It was a wonderful day of seeing some great man-made sights as well as some beautiful countryside.