Santa Barbara has the most amazing general landscape views that we have seen. Their roads are literally lined with humungous palm trees, with the beach to one side of you and mountains to the other. The sea has a light misty fog just above its surface giving the fishing vessels a mysterious "Pirates of the Caribbean" impression. Thomas and I just can't get over the natural beauty in California and feel so fortunate to be able to appreciate it for how truly incredible it is; I can imagine that if you lived here you would definitely take it for granted and wouldn't even notice how amazing it is to be in such an environment every day.
The long:
Friday:
We set off to Hearst Castle to check out this "party castle" that we had heard so much about. I was really excited to go as so many people had recommended it to me before we set off on our trip, and now I can see why! The place is unbelievable. It was owned by a guy called William Hearst who commissioned an architect in 1919 to build him a "hilltop vacation home". Together they spent 28 years redesigning and extending the palace that it is as apparently he was an incredibly fickle man who changed his mind every 5 minutes about what he liked and what he wanted. Money was clearly no object!
This is the private road that you have to take to reach the castle, which gives extraordinary views as you weave and wind your way up the mountain:
(^ The castle being the tiny thing in the far distance at the top.)
Despite his wealth William Hearst socialised with anyone and everyone. Guests of the castle were expected to join him in the "Assembly Room" for cocktails at 7:30, followed by dinner served at 8:30, followed by a movie in the home cinema. He did this every single day; doesn't sound too shabby to me. He was all about having fun and wanted people to have an "anything is possible" experience when staying with him. He had a private zoo for God's sake, which is now the second largest in California.
He designed the main entrance to resemble a 19th century Italian convent, and then built a fountain with a naked lady lying in wait facing it. He sounds like my kind of guy.
Thomas and I did 2 tours enabling us to have a look round both the downstairs and upstairs of the main castle.
^ He didn't want to intimidate his guests with lavish tablecloths and fancy cutlery, so paper napkins, ketchup and mustard were staple features of the dining table, even though they were unknowingly surrounded by art and tapestries worth extortionate amounts of money. I could definitely eat at this table!
It was the details in every room that totally blew me away; everything from the unique ceilings to the intricate ornaments were remarkable.
The decor had a clear Mediterranean theme running through it but each room was still slightly different with antique pieces from countries all over the world and from different time periods. I have to say I thought some of it was absolutely stunning.
The rooms I found most impressive were probably his study and the library:
Let's not be forgetting the "piece de resistance", the casual indoor Roman pool, which is one of the most gorgeous rooms I have ever seen!
Oh, and the magnificent views that he had right on his doorstep:
Just ridiculous. And it wasn't even his main residence. I can't say I'd mind living there.
Next, Thomas and I drove to Pismos Beach where we exchanged our wheels for some others, but not before we were made to watch 45 minutes worth of safety videos; I was ready to crawl into bed when it was finally time to hit the dunes. I quickly woke up though as soon as we started revving our new super speedy ATV's. It was time to get serious.
We sped off bouncing up and down over the dunes, getting our wheels stuck several times and pooing our pants whenever we came to the edge of a dune and saw the steep drop that we had no way of avoiding. We had so much fun racing around, although I've definitely gotten a bit older as my dare devil youthful self was no where to be seen; Thomas was more than welcome to do all the wheelies he could manage without me.
The views were mind blowing yet again.
At one point my rear wheels really got STUCK. I pressed the throttle and bounced up and down a bit hoping that shifting my weight would help free me. Thomas called out telling me to stop, and said that he should get a picture of me doing it because the sand spitting out from behind looked really cool. Great idea. I pressed the throttle once more, but just a little harder this time, really sinking my rear wheels into the sand causing an actual wall of sand to rise up from behind me and envelope me in what seemed like a never ending sand bubble; it just kept coming, and coming, and coming.
It was incredibly funny. Thomas fell to the floor laughing as I set about removing sand from every inch of my body.
I got my pay back though as I then got to watch him struggle to free the damn thing.
We got there in the end and, not long after, we rode our ATV's back to base just as the sun was beginning to set, which was fairly awesome, passing fishermen and surfers as we went.
We settled into the vehicle we're more used to and began the 1 hour drive to our hotel. It had just gone 8pm when we checked in and having burnt some serious nervous energy on the dunes I was absolutely ravenous. We headed to Santa Barbara downtown to get some grub in us ASAP. There was a casual looking restaurant across the street from where we parked that was very busy, so we made a beeline for it. As we were queueing for a table Thomas suddenly turned to me and said excitedly that one of the waitresses was a girl named Heather that we went to summer school with. I have to say that I wasn't convinced, but Thomas went for it and called her name, to which she looked over and instantly recognised us, which is really rather unbelievable if you think about it; of all the restaurants that we could have chosen, we chose to eat at one where we BOTH knew someone that happened to be on shift at the right time, on the 1 night that we were in Santa Barbara... We were all pretty stunned and it definitely took a while to come to terms with what an incredibly unlikely coincidence it was. Once we had, however, Thomas and I got down to the urgent business of feeding ourselves. I had my first ever kale salad and I have to say that I really, really enjoyed it. Yes to kale!
Heather popped over and told us that she was finishing her shift at 10:30 if we wanted to join her for some drinks. I felt so rude but all day I had been dreaming of climbing into bed and relaxing, plus it was still 2 hours until she finished. I politely excused myself but urged Thomas to go and have fun since they were much closer than I had ever been to her and I was sure that they had a lot of catching up to do. Any other day and I would have loved to though. So Thomas and I split, with the plan being that I drove the 3.5 miles home and Heather would drop him off once they were done with their evening. Easy peasy. Once I'd managed to start the car (after repeatedly trying to turn on the ignition with my foot on the brake rather than the accelerator), I cautiously began the short drive home with my eyes glued to the sat nav. Thomas had done most of the driving since we arrived, so I can't say that I was as comfortable as I would have been back home, but it was just around the corner right? I was cruising down some back streets a couple of minutes later when I realised that I didn't have my lights on, whoops. No biggie. I managed to get 1/4 of a mile away when I made my biggest boo boo though. Having relaxed slightly I was waiting at an intersection when my dear American friend told me to "turn left", which I did. A few moments later a car drove past me and beeped. Unsure of what their problem was I continued as I was until another car emerged swerving dramatically and holding down its horn for what seemed like eternity. Ok, so I was on the wrong side of the road. Considering it was 4 lanes wide I had no way of crossing over to the right side, so pulled in to a car park at the nearest opportunity. Thanking God that everyone was alive I turned around and continued my now ridiculously short journey, on the right side of the road, of course. I stopped at a red traffic light and was looking at the sat nav, waiting for it to zone in to the direction that I was facing when I realised that the light had turned green. I quickly started driving, with my hotel entrance just 2 turnings away.
But I did not make it, because blue lights had started flashing in all of my mirrors. Oh. Dear. God. I pulled into another parking lot and by pure instinct hurriedly opened the car door to apologise profusely and explain myself. Obviously that is not an ok thing to do and I was barked to "get back in yo vehicle ma'am", to which I shot back inside and slammed the car door shut, sitting completely still. The policeman walked over and motioned with his hand for me to wind down the window; Thomas and I have a slightly fancy pants car with automatic windows so I pressed what I thought was the button for my window, only to find that it was for the rear left window. I quickly pressed another, and saw the rear right window begin to go down. Shit. I pressed all 4. All 4 windows were now winding down at different paces. I can't even imagine what he must have been thinking, but the first question I was fairly asked was "have you been drinking ma'am?", followed by "do you know why I stopped you? You drove on the wrong side of the road and then didn't go at a green traffic light". Word diarrhoea began pouring out of my mouth as I explained that I was English and that we drive on the other side of the road, and that I haven't been the main driver since arriving in the US. Essentially I gave him my life story. Once I'd run out of steam he had thankfully massively lighened up and we seperated on "wishing well terms" with no repercussions for me. I pulled into our hotel parking lot and turned off the engine. Finally able to breathe again I began laughing hysterically and couldn't wait to tell someone. I could not believe what had just happened. Well I can now safely tick "encounter with US police" off the bucket list. In hindsight I wish I'd taken a selfie with him but that may just have been pushing my luck a little too far. Thomas came home after I'd gone to bed so we would just have to wait to swap the evening's tales till morning.
Saturday:
Thomas and I hit up Whole Foods and spent the better part of an hour cruising the aisles whilst I flapped around pointing out all the amazing produce they have. Whole Foods is the freaking Mecca of the food world; I could genuinely spend all day in there without getting bored. I spent a good 20 minutes just analysing trail mixes for God's sake. Once we had emptied our pockets we left armed with a great selection of goodies and headed for Santa Barbara wharf to munch them down.
Happy bunnies, we drove to San Ysidro Ranch, which is a 5* hotel that was recommended to me by one of mum's friends for its astounding beauty.
I cannot put into words how magical this place is. They were setting up for a wedding later in the afternoon and all I could think about was how I wished that it was my wedding. Every thing from the gardens to the scenery to the buildings to the staff is a hands down 10/10. Thomas and I got 2 (very expensive) drinks and wandered around the property. At $17 I am pleased that I can at least say that it was the best Bloody Mary I have ever had.
San Ysidros is a complete paradise. Mum and Ollie you would absolutely love it, as would most sane people on this earth. I was just so overwhelmed by how perfect everything was and, yes, perfect is the word that I would use to describe the place.
Once we had finished admiring the grounds, the valet brought our car around (yes, you are not actually allowed to park yourself) and we made for a quick get-a-way to Los Angeles.
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