The plan originally was to drive to San Luis Opispo and spend the night there. That plan changed with Hearst Castle. We decided that we’d drive up to Hearst Castle that afternoon and take a tour. The GPS had us getting there at 3:30pm and the last tour of the day was 3:20. My mom looked online and said something about a guided tour, which was ok because we’d rather do that than pay the $25 for the normal tour. We drove through a lot of rain, hills with windfarms (apparently the wind farm capitol of the US) and some beautiful scenery. Our stop for lunch was a great one. We needed gas and saw a sign for a bakery at an exit. Dan had his fingers crossed for meat pies (which he hasn’t seen in the US as of yet). We ate at this great bakery and shared a poor boy sandwich, which was huge. Alas, no pies, but… they had Bundaberg Ginger Beer!!!! Dan was pretty excited and we had one of those to accompany the sandwiches. When we got there it was sunny, by the time we left it was pouring. It poured through a lot of California until we got to the coast. Wine country is beautiful. Full of rolling hills that Dan said reminded him of the drive to Byron (and I could see it, as well).
We arrive at Hearst Castle to find that the last tour had indeed gone (no surprise) but there was no self guided tour. The only one that existed was of the gardens and only happened on weekends. Luckily the tours started at 8:20 am the next morning. Next order of business, find a hotel! San Simeon is on the water and there was a strip of “budget” hotels. We trolled around for a little while trying to steal someone’s internet so we had an idea of the rates and if one was by far better than the rest. In the end we ended up doing it the old fashioned way of going to different hotels and asking about the rate. We ended up at the Day’s Inn (the 3rd one we asked at).
We checked in and took a walk down to the beach. It was coldish and windy but sunny. I still had my part of the leftover sandwich so we took our blanket and ate it by a river and watched the kite surfers. On the beach there were a couple of cool driftwood structures. One looked like a windbreak and the other a cool little lean-to. 
Next order of business, dinner. We got some interesting beer at a little shop and then ordered food based on the guy behind the counter’s recommendation. We walked down to the Motel 6 to pick the food up and then returned to our hotel to eat, plan and above all relax. It’s amazing how tiring traveling in the car can be!
That night I woke up around 1am to the heater making some scary noises and heating full-blast. It was hot and scary. I got up and turned it waaaay down and asked a mostly asleep Dan to switch sides so he was closer to it. Sounds mean, but it was the middle of the night and I was unreasonably scared of it.
The next morning Dan went down and got breakfast waffles and chatted with an traveling elderly couple for awhile. They recommended making reservations for the castle tour. As soon as he got back and told me that I went online and looked at it. Had we known we should have made reservations the night before. The earliest tour that wasn’t sold out was the 11:20 which was way too late for us. That was disappointing, but cest la vie.
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