The Hearst Castle Pool
John and I on the grounds
Posed Hiking pictures
The waterfall
Napa Artwork
The waterfall
Napa Artwork
The kids both went to camp this year, the same camp, at the same time, for a whole week. That left John and I with a week together. We decided to make the most of it and take off. We have not been away from the kids more than 2 nights in a row since they were born (and Lauren turns 14 next month.) We planned to drive up the coast and see central California. We spent the first night in San Luis Obispo. There we visited the Madonna Inn and saw the famous waterfall urinal in the downstairs men's restroom. We also had a great Italian dinner that left us very full.
The second day we toured Hearst Castle and checked into the Ragged Point Inn. Ragged Point is very rugged as well. There are no phones in the rooms and there is no cell service for about 10 miles. Here we relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful rocky coastline. We even saw some whale spouts on our second night.
Hearst Castle was beautiful in an overdone kind of way. We fell in love with the two swimming pools, both indoor and outdoor. We asked our guide if anyone was ever allowed to swim in the incredible pools (it would be really sad if they were never used) and he told us that employees were allowed to use the pools on certain nights after work. The remaining members of the Hearst family also use the pools even though they no longer live on the grounds. Now John and I have a new goal. We must become tour guides for Hearst Castle.
We spent a day hiking while staying at Ragged Point. We found a trail head just up the highway from our Inn and decided to give it a go. About a quarter of a mile up we saw a great little waterfall. We took a few photos and looked around and then headed on up the trail. After about 2 miles of straight uphill the path evened out a bit but really seemed to be heading nowhere. After hiking for nearly 2 hours, we saw another sign for the trail that let us know that we were really headed nowhere. When we found Salmon Creek, we stopped and took some pictures and decided to head back down the mountain. We were hot and tired and getting pretty hungry. The brutal uphill climb turned into a brutal downhill retreat, but we made it. Our muscles let us know the next day that we had really done some work.
The next day we found our way up the coast to San Francisco. After lunch of clam chowder in a sour dough bread bowl at the Blue Mermaid, a tradition that we will not be giving up anytime soon, we headed to Ghirardelli Square for John to get some ice cream. Of course as we were waiting, someone walked up and said, "Are you Mr. Gottschalk?" John was discovered by a former student. Seems to happen more and more. After a walk (hike) around San Fran on tired legs from hiking the day before, we headed up to Napa for the next leg of our trip.
Napa was different from what I remember from our trip 15 years ago, but a fun place to visit without kids. We enjoyed a tour of the Sterling Vinyard and found a new favorite, Clos Pegase. Of course the old favorite, Mondavi, was still there with beautiful grounds. As we were leaving Mondavi, we saw a section of grapes that had been planted the year that we were last there. They were quite mature plants, let me tell you. We spent a second night in Napa before heading home on Thursday. We stopped to visit friends Matt and Shelley and their kids in Pleasanton (They were visiting her family) and went to a great brewery for lunch. Then we settled in for the drive home. Thanks to a sig alert on the freeway, that was a longer drive than we were ready for, but we made it home, grateful for our own bed and our own pillows.
