Day 10 - Cambria to Anaheim

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Went on our tour of Hearst Castle this morning. What ridiculous opulence and wealth! This "Castle" cost William Randolph Hearst in excess of $10 million to build in the 1920's and took 23 years to complete. We only saw the outdoor pool - which included a 2000 year old Greek sculpture, an 8 bedroom guest suite that had slept the likes of Cary Grant, Marilyn Munroe, Charlie Chaplin to name a few, the dining room complete with antiques galore, the living room which was decorated with 300 year old tapestries and the indoor pool made out of gold plated tiles!!! Unbelievable. This guy was just O.T.T. We all enjoyed it, but that much wealth is expenditure is just ?????? I'm not sure how I feel.... It was a worthwhile oncer.

Then as we're driving down the main highway after the tour, what do we see grazing in a paddock next to the road? About two dozen ZEBRA!!! Apparently they are the leftovers from Mr Hearst's zoo that he had on the property all those years ago. Just about enough to make one drive off the road seeing that unexpectedly.

Continued our journey further down the coast past Pismo Beach - stoppingfor only a short time as the fog was pretty thick and the weather cold, then on to Solvang, a Danish town just off the highway. This was a lovely place to stop off for an hour or so - but HOT - it registered 88 degrees on the car temp guage (God, it was Hot!). This wee town was full of cute pretty buildings all done in the European style (even new ones being built were the same) - but the shopping wasn't that flash. Kids enjoyed the fudge, icecream and sweet shops of course, but we were soon on the road again.

Next stop, the famed Santa Barbara. We parked illegally at first (thank goodness a nice man told us to move or we would have been towed) and had a walk out on the pier. Santa Barbara has a nice feel to it - very clean and full of palm trees. It would be a nice place to stay for a couple of days if we had time.

Started our final stretch down to LA at about 5.00pm hoping to avoid peak rush hour - but I think on this highway it' rush hour all the time. Steve did really well on the 10 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic moving at about 120km/hr for the three hours it took to arrive in Anaheim. Our Tom Tom did us proud again and now that we have sussed out it's language, navigating isn't too horrendous anymore. The traffic in LA has to be seen to be believed!!!! It is freaking amazing - mile after mile after mile of headlights and tail lights snaking its way along the freeway. At times we hit the most complicated spaggetti junctions we have ever seen!!!! Not for the faint hearted. But it was very cool passing all the well known streets such as Ventura Highway, Mulholland Drive, Melrose etc etc.

Arrived at the Doubletree Hotel just before 8pm, unpacked and hit the hay completely exhausted.

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