An excerpt. This post takes us down the big Sur Highway to Cambria, CA. Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/
"We asked the owner of a small bakery about visiting Hearst Castle. The house and grounds were made into a state park in 1958, and throngs of visitors have been coming ever since. She said that it was a little pricey to do the short tour, but if we wanted to learn about Hearst and "La Cuesta Encantada" (The Enchanted Hill), we should visit the museum at the Visitors’ Center. "It’s free," she said, and "you can decide if you want to visit the castle after you see the museum." This was good advice. The museum is interesting. There is nothing negative about the father of "yellow journalism" and the progenitor of Fox News, but the exhibits give you an idea of Hearst’s monomaniacal obsessions and fantastic wealth. Hearst inherited the 250,000 acres, with fourteen miles of shoreline, from his mother, and the property had been in his family since the 1860s. There are several large houses on the grounds; the largest one, the castle proper, contains 60,645 square feet of space. Besides the museum, the Visitors’ Center contains every imaginable type of Hearst memorabilia, as well as ample food venues, including a shop at which you can purchase beef from the Hearst ranch. Environmentally sound ranching practices, of course. We couldn’t bring ourselves to buy a ticket and take the five-mile bus ride up the steep and winding hills to see the house. We were sure both the ride and the vulgar displays of wealth would make us sick."
michael yates