Starting from Monterey, CA we headed farther south on the Pacific Coast Highway (US-1) toward San Luis Obispo, CA today. The route took us down past Carmel and through the Big Sur area of California where the wildfires recently burned out the area. The damage from the wildfires was quite evident here and the whole region smelled like the ash from a day old campfire. While US-1 is completely open now, there are still several areas here closed because of the fires and/or the resulting damage.
Big Sur Ashes
Burned Hills in Distance
Burned Landscape of Big Sur
While we didn’t see any actual live flames, we understand the wildfires are still burning here and are still only about 70% contained. Given the very difficult terrain and sheer amount of acreage the fires have consumed, you wonder how they can really control the progress of the fires at all. One thing to note is that while we saw massive amounts of the landscape burned, we didn’t see any places where actual structures along US-1 were damaged nor did we see any places where the fires were able to cross to the west side of US-1…. so hats off to the fire fighters on that one.
After making our way down through the winding road and sometimes gut wrenching precipice views of cliffs and ocean we made our way down to San Simeon, CA. This area is home to Hearst Castle or what is more officially known as the Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument. However, it was originally officially named “La Cuesta Encantada” – Spanish for “The Enchanted Hill” – by it’s original builder William Randolph Hearst. Less formally, Hearst typically referred to the Castle as simply “The Ranch”.
There are four different types of tours available of the estate that covers various different aspects of the 90,000 square foot facility. We opted for the overview tour that works off the premise that you are a guest at the estate and exposed (to some extent) to what a guest in Hearst’s time would have experienced. The place is quite amazing and worth the visit if you are ever in the area.
Hearst Castle Front Entrance
Hearst Castle Main Outdoor Pool
Hearst Dining Room
Oh, and before we forget, why was today Corvette Brochure Sunday? – Well it turns that when we were trying to pick out which color to order our 2007 Corvette in, the Corvette brochure showed a helicopter shot view of a Monterey Red Metallic Corvette driving south from Monterey across the famous Bixby Creek Bridge in Big Sur. While it ended up being a few years later, today was our day to drive south over the Bixby Bridge in a Monterey Red Corvette.
Big Sur Shoreline and Bixby Bridge
Tomorrow we head out from San Luis Obispo, CA to visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the most recently retired Air Force One plane in Simi Valley, CA just north of Los Angeles.
