Sat. Nov. 15 The traffic was real heavy and we missed the turn at San Jose is the reason we wound up spending the night in Morgan Hill last night. So we head north back to San Jose to see the Winchester Mystery House. When we arrive, we find out there will be over an hour wait till they open. We decide to skip the house tour and get on hwy 17 to Santa Cruz. There we take hwy 1 to Carmel where we take a look around town and make our way down to the beach. Lot of people walking the beach, swimming and surfing. We talk to several of the people in town and at the beach. Of course they couldn't believe we had ridden all the way from Ms. and a few said they wish they could do something like that themselves. Our next stop after leaving Carmel is Big Sur where we stop for fuel. Next door is the River Inn, a motel - restaurant started in 1934 that advertised country dining. A lot of motorcycles and cars parked there so we go in for a bite of lunch. Their definition of country dining is not the same as I'm use to around here. Everything is organic. Not wanting tofu, I decide on a salad, $16, with romaine lettuce, they don't have iceburg. Waitress ask if I want free-range chicken breast on it, only $6 more. The thing comes and the piece of chicken was the size of 4 dominos. Don't know if their free-range chickens are what we call roadrunners back here. The tea looked like they scraped rust off some irrigation pipe and mixed water with it, why can't there be a national standard to go by on how to made good tea. We continue south on hwy 1. Along the way you can see the beauty of the ocean waves crashing on the rocks and beach. We cross the Rocky Creek Bridge built in 1932, it is one of 2 we cross on our way south. You can be riding along looking at the ocean and then the road pulls away from the ocean edge and then there would be cattle grazing in pastures or there would be fields of vegatables growing. Just before reaching San Simeon, we see a lot of cattle and the a herd of elk. We figure out later they were on the Hearst Ranch, which at one time contained 250,000 acres. We pull over just at dusk where they have a walk way to look at the Elephant seals that sleep on the beach at night. A few more miles down the road we reach San Simeon where we spend the night. After checking in, we walk next door for supper, better choice of food here. The motel we stay in has 3 fire pits along the beach. People are sitting out by the fires, really nice. The room has no A/C, you leave the window open a little for. I listened to the waves crashing on the beach that night as I fell asleep.

Sun. Nov. 16 It's a nice 58 degrees this morning when we get up. While killing time waiting for the Hearst Castle to open, we walk down to the beach to look around. Out about 400 yards we see a school of those orca whales swimming down the coast. Went to the visitor center to take the Hearst Castle tour. If you are ever in the vicinity of this place, you must go see what a man with too much money and power can spend in excess. It is unbelievable with all the art, statues and woodwork inside this place. Some of the things date back 3000 years. Leaving the castle we go south to hwy 46 that takes up into the mountains , see more vineyards before reaching hwy 101. As we approach Santa Barbara, we are back along the ocean. Seeing oil rigs out in the Pacific. Made it to Ventura at dark where we get a room. Find a sports bar a few blocks away for food. There are a lot of Mexicans there watching the football game. We learn from their actions and jerseys that their team was Dallas and it became our's as well. After the meal we returned to the motel for the night.