A view of Hearst Castle through those binocular things you have to put a quarter in.
We left Hearst Castle took a walk on a nearby pier. Our views wound up being obstructed by low-lying clouds all day. But that's okay and pretty in its own way.
Next stop: Elephant seals!
If an elephant seal was a person and I was asked to choose one word to describe that person, I think that word would be "rude". They have these weird snout things, like short elephant trunks, they're really fat and slow, and they make terrible burpy noises and just sort of flop all over each other. When they get annoyed at each other, they rear up and make belching noises in each other's faces. But the BEST thing they do is fling sand up onto themselves with their fins to stay warm. It is so adorable. You can see this in the first video. Also, you probably can't see it, but in the second video, one of the pups is scratching its fin. You can hear that I'm excited about it, and you can also hear the elephant seals "conversing".
Here is a link to the LiveCam, so you can check out the elephant seals for yourself.
We continued on through Big Sur, along the coast.
Our sweet ride.
We went to the Hog's Breath Inn in Carmel for lunch. This restaurant used to be owned by Clint Eastwood. The food was very good! I got a seared tuna sandwich and Jordan got a prime rib sandwich.
We left Carmel and drove up to San Jose, where we stopped at the Winchester Mystery House. This place is so cool! If I ever go back, I'm definitely taking a tour (every Friday the 13th, they do a "flashlight tour" at night in the dark -- this is what I really would like to do).
The background of this house is so interesting! This is what they tell you when you visit:
Sarah Winchester was the widow of rifle manufacturer, William Winchester. After the deaths of her husband and daughter, Sarah consulted an occultist who told her that they had been taken by the spirits of those who had been killed by the rifles manufactured by her husband. In order to remain safe from the spirits, Sarah must build a mansion for them and never stop construction on it. So, for nearly 38 years, from 1884 until Sarah's death in 1922, construction was ongoing at the house 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In the end, there were 160 rooms spanning six acres. Due to the constant adding on and remodeling, the house has many quirks, including "doors to nowhere", which, when opened, reveal a wall or just thin air, with nothing but the ground one story below. The house also has many many bedrooms, and Mrs. Winchester would sleep in a different bedroom each night because she thought the spirits would not be able to find her this way. She also developed a special bell system so that her servants actually could find her.
I don't know if the above is true or not. I've done a bit of research since visiting the house, and there are claims that Sarah was not a spiritualist at all and her incessant housebuilding had nothing to do with a belief in the occult. Either way, the house is weird.
Oddly enough, they had beer and wine tastings at the mansion, so, of course, we tried some beer…
…and then walked around the grounds.
See the "Door to Nowhere"?
This is the beautiful front door to the mansion, which Sarah never used. In 1903, Teddy Roosevelt stopped by the house to visit Sarah, and was asked to go around back and enter through the servants' entrance. Insulted, he left in a huff. The two never did meet.
Winchester Mansion gingerbread house. Don't eat it! It's old -- like, made in 1990.
We went to our hotel in San Jose and brought in some Vietnamese food. Today was Day 3 and we traveled nearly 200 miles. We're super close to San Francisco!
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