Day 18

Depart: Pismo Beach, CA, 8:30 am, Partly Cloudy, 55 degrees

We woke up in Pismo Beach this morning, and headed up the Pacific Coast highway towards San Francisco.

Our first stop of the day was at the famous Hearst Castle. This was a huge estate built by William Randolph Hearst, the publishing giant that the movie Citizen Kane was based on. It was really cool, and the pictures don't do it justice. See the pictures here. The tour was cool, but cost $18 a person, and only covers a fraction of the castle. There are 4 other tours offered to see alot more of it.

When we were leaving Hearst castle we saw a "Vista Point" where there were alot of cars parked. We parked too and discovered that Elephant Seals had beached themselves for breeding season. Click here to see more pictures of the cute seals.

We then drove through Big Sur, a beautiful drive along the Pacific through lots of winding mountains. There were no cities for quite a few hours.

One note for anyone planning to drive through Big Sur. Top off your gas tank! We probably had enough gas to make it through, but it was getting low, and there were only two gas stations in the remote area. And they charged around $3 a gallon! We decided to be safe and payed for $10 of gas to make it through (3 gallons).

After we went through Big Sur we went to Monterrey. It was a neat little city, and as it turned out, we were there when the Monarch Butterflies came to town. Click here to see more pictures of them. We also visited Cannery Row while in Monterrey, and we went to the fisherman's wharf as well. At the end of the wharf live a bunch of Sea Lions. They were pretty funny, see more pictures of them here.

We finished up our day at the Laguna Seca racetrack. It's one of the best racetracks in America. See more pictures here. We stopped for the night in Redwood City, which is in the suburbs of San Francisco in the Silicon Valley.

Arrive: Redwood City, CA, 6 pm, Partly Cloudy, 59 degrees.