Our Own California Adventure - Leg 1 UPDATED 6/16 About This Page:

[Mares75]

Originally Posted by Dlandmom2

Can't wait to read more! I love reading about others' adventures in California. Having been born and raised here, I tend to take certain things for granted. Hearing about other people's experiences often opens my eyes to new places I never would've thought to visit!

I know exactly what you mean. I've lived here my whole life and we're not far from Chicago. I love reading about other people's visits to Chicago. It makes me see the city in a whole new light.

[Mares75]

Sorry it's taken so long everyone! DH and I both got sick last week and it just wiped us out. We're also planning a quick trip to Maryland in a couple of weeks for my cousin's wedding. We're going to Washington DC one day. DS and I have never been to DC before so I'm excited to go. Add to that all the end of year school stuff that seems to be going on these days and things are very busy around here.

Anyway! Back to the mission:

The walking tour was very interesting and we learned a lot about this place. The tour guide mentioned the strange things people see or hear sometimes so of course DS was on a mission to find something unusual. DFiL kind of wandered behind, sitting and resting when he needed to. He kept telling us to go ahead because he's been on the tour before. DFiL is something else. Things are done his way and there is no discussion about it. I can't imagine growing up with that. But being adults now, we realize it's just easier to go along with it. Or at least tell him we will but really do whatever we want.

All of these missions were built by Spain because they wanted to control the western coast of what's now the US. They sent pastors from Mexico, which was Spanish controled then, north to establish missions along the coast. Spain figured they could easily convert the native people to Christianity and the Spanish way of life. It's like instant Spain on the west coast. Of course it didn't work out that way. There was a huge uprising here of the native Chumash Indians and a big battle with Mexican soldiers. The whole mission system eventually fell apart because Mexico revolted against Spain. Spain didn't have the resources to keep the missions going.

The tour started at the El Camino Real.

The tour guide seemed very proud that this is the last remaining portion of this road. I'll admit, it's a strange feeling to be standing somewhere where so many people traveled hundreds of years ago basically seeing what they would have seen.


This is the cemetary. They estimate around 800 people are buried here! And it really is as small as this picture makes it look. At the edges of the picture is where the outer walls are. There's just the one marker for all of them.

Call me crazy, but there's a certain heaviness everywhere in this place. DH and I finally admitted this to each other later. Neither of us wanted to say anything because you don't want to seem nuts. I didn't really like being in here. It just didn't seem like a place we should be. It just had an icky feeling to it, to be scientific about it.

Another place we visited that had the icky feeling was the jail. It's not far from the cemetary. It's just a maybe 12x12 room with a couple of small windows at the top of what must be 15 foot ceilings. The floor is just dirt. There's a hitching post in it because for some reason prisoners were put in there with a mule. The prisoners were Chumash Indians who were put there for being disobedient. The tour guide told us men receive up to 20 lashes daily for 20 days, which he said would kill most people. Women were placed in stocks and had their heads shaved to humiliate them. After we got home I looked up La Purisima Mission online and learned there's supposed to be some guy that was murdered buried in the jail. Oh it gets even better. If a Chumash girl wasn't married by 11, she was taken from her family and placed into a dormitory with other girls. During the day they were taught to make candles and things, then at night they were locked in their dorms. Long wooden platforms are attached to the walls for beds. The tour guide said it was pretty miserable because small pox was a big problem and if you were placed here to live and one girl got it, you pretty much had a death sentence. Nice place, isn't it?


Soldier's quarters located right off the cemetary. The soldier's were sent from Mexico by Spain to protect the mission and keep the Chumash Indians in line.

The soldier's belongings and areas were marked with roman numerals because majority of the soldiers couldn't read.

The main chapel. They eventually had to build a new chapel because an underwater spring located here caused damage to the floors. The tour guide said since the place has been restored, they're starting to have the same problems with the underwater spring. The tiles on this side of the church are the original tiles.

Front of the chapel.

Ok, next creepy thing about this place? Father Payeras, who ran the mission for 20 years, is buried under the floorboards. DH and I were wondering what we got ourselves into at this point. Dead priests buried under floorboards, hundreds in a cemetary, people jailed and tortured - fun for the whole family! In the picture there's a sign on the floor. He's buried just to the right of the sign. Seems the Chumash loved him and he even became the president of the entire mission system eventually. When he died, he wanted to be buried under the floor of the church.


They said 9 of the pillars are the original, the rest were rebuilt. This takes you down to the pastor's quarters and Chumash work areas.

Here is where the Chumash women would make bread and there's an olive press.

This place is huge and there's tons of hiking trails too.

Olive trees are everywhere here. Certain areas like this one, the ground is covered in olives.

One very large bull. They have animals representative of the period in the same areas livestock was originally kept.

There's quite a few underground springs around here and they built an entire irrigation system through the property. The fountain in the middle is where you'd get drinking water.

From the drinking fountain, water flows down here where they washed their clothes. The tour guide told us the Chumash were given one set of clothing, an extra skirt or pair of pants, and one blanket per year!

Water flowed down from the laundry area here where it collected. It was used for bathing and watering crops.

You come across irrigation ditches all over. They built little footbridges over the ditch using rocks.

After the tour, DFiL took us up driving through some of the mountains and to Chumash Lake.

DFiL told us they had to open the dam because of all the rain they've had. DH and DS decided to follow a short hiking trail and I hung back with DFiL. It wasn't till after the boys left that I noticed the 'Warning: Mountain Lions' sign next to the path they took. I knew DH hadn't seen that one.

By now DFiL was pretty much done for the day so we dropped him off and stopped at a local restaurant for dinner, the Jalama Beach Cafe. The food was pretty good and it wasn't super expensive. I quickly learned I love love love using Yelp when looking for restaurants while traveling. Since I'm a vegetarian, it can be somewhat tricky finding places to eat so it's nice being able to look up menus before we go. Even if you aren't vegetarian, you never know what local places are good and which ones to stay away from. All the reviews on Yelp were so helpful plus it maps out directions for you. Bless my little Android phone!

We headed back to the hotel and just hung out. Watched some tv, DS read his book he got at the mission which of course is all about different haunted missions. I introduced DH to Words with Friends on my phone and started an addiction that continues to this day.

Tomorrow we're driving north to Hearst Castle!

[chezp]

What a fascinating place!

Sorry you guys have been sick. You are going to LOVE Washington DC - it's one of our favourite cities.

[KMB733]

What an interesting place. I could certainly see why you would have a creepy feeling.

Hope you are feeling better

Have fun in DC! It's a great city, and you'll love it!

[Colexis Mom]

Great update and pictures! Can't wait to hear all about Hearst Castle!

[pamcarey]

What an interesting update! I lived in Goleta, CA for a short time on a road called El Camino Real. It's probably part of the same route. Can't wait to hear about Hearst Castle! I loved it!

[jennie622]

Such cool pics! Sounds like an episode of Ghost Hunters!

[ilovedisney247]

What a cool day! I actually love cemeteries--so full of history! They are also typically pretty neat to photograph.

[OhToodles!]

Hope things calm down for you soon!
That place does sound a little creepy.

[Mares75]

We're finally back from our weekend trip to MD and DC. You all were right and I loved DC. We can't wait to get back some time. We only had a day to spend there and there's so much more to see and do. On with the CA adventure!

Monday we were going to see Hearst Castle. DH and I stopped there on our last trip but all the tours were sold out. This time we made sure to get our tickets in advance. I of course woke up at the fantastic time of 5:30 again. DH and DS were still sound asleep so I went and got coffee and sat outside watching the sun come up over the mountains again. It became my morning ritual while staying in Lompoc.

We picked up DFiL and started making the 2 hour or so drive north to San Simeon. We stopped at Pismo Beach along the way which always makes me think of Bugs Bunny.


Lots of surfers out this morning.




We walked out as far as we could along the pier but they were doing construction on the end so we couldn't get all the way out.


Look how close that brown house is to the edge! DFiL told us the city wants the residents in those houses along the coast to pay more taxes to pay for restoring the coastline but the residents are fighting with the city about it.

We kept driving stopping for these giant sticky buns DFiL insisted we get. We got near San Simeon about an hour and a half early but we wanted to make sure we got lunch before anyway. After lunch we finished the short drive to Hearst Castle and were able to get on an earlier tour.

Hearst Castle was simply amazing. The pictures really don't do it justice. We all had a great time and we'd definitely go back for a different tour to see some more of the place. DFiL did really good walking it. They said it's something like 150 stairs but they're those little stairs like in the front of museums, not like a normal staircase so he was fine. Sorry some of the pictures are a little blurry. The lighting is pretty dim to protect the tapestries and artwork so no flash is allowed either. It's the best I could do.

They showed a movie at the end of tour about William Randolph Hearst. He and his mother toured Europe for 2 years when he was a child so you can see where he got a lot of the ideas for this place. Many of the items in it he brought in because he saw similar things on that trip. The whole place is designed like the mediterranean houses he saw.

The property is huge and there are multiple buildings up there. The tour guide said members of the Hearst family still own and live on the rest of the property while they donated this part to the state so 'Hearst Castle' is owned by California while they retain ownership of everything else. We toured Casa del Sol, one of the guest houses, and part of Casa del Grande, the main house.

First you have to board a bus and they drive you up to the property.


Where we're headed. The roads are VERY windy and steep.


View of the ocean on the way up. It takes a good 15 minutes or so to get up to the house. The buses have to drive pretty slow up those roads. It makes you really appreciate when they started building this place back in the 1919 just how much a pain it would've been to haul all the building materials and artifacts all the way up here. But once at the top, you can see why he loved this place so much and wanted to build something here. We got the impression he was much like Walt Disney in that Hearst Castle was a place that would never be finished. He constructed parts, tore them down, and reconstructed it until it was just what he wanted. Another interesting thing we learned is the architect was a woman, highly unusual for the time.

Once we reached the top we headed up some stairs towards Casa del Sol.

Path and stairway at the end towards Casa del Sol.


Casa del Sol. Remember, this is a guest house! It had 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 2 sitting rooms. No kitchens were in the guest houses because Hearst wanted his guests out and about, not sitting in the guest houses. The tour guide told us guests were free to stay as long as they wanted and the only expectations were you would be up by 8 or 9 and out doing something whether it was visiting the private zoo, swimming, tennis, horse back riding you name it, being ready and present for cocktails that evening, and attending the nightly dinner.

We walked around the side of Casa del Sol towards the Neptune Pool.

Heading towards the Neptune Pool. We quickly learned no matter where you look there is something to see and be in awe of.


The temple is constructed from parts of ancient Roman temples they shipped in pieces and reconstructed here. The stones above the pillars don't match because they weren't from the same temples. The pool was torn down and reconstructed 3 times before Hearst was satisfied. All the statues are Italian marble, the pool ladders are Italian marble, and so is the pool floor itself.




They were doing some restorative work so there was some scaffolding up on the left side of the photo.

View of the pool from a large patio towards Casa del Sol. The pool is fed by a mountain spring and it was heated with oil heaters. Needless to say the state isn't about to pay all that money to heat it now. Our tour guide was great and answered anyone's questions. The Hearst Family still uses the pool occasionally, part of the deal when they donated it. She said they've used it before for Make a Wish too. One little girl wanted to swim in the most beautiful pool in the world so they brought here her. Easy to see why.


The views are unbelievable up here.

We walked through a small part of a large garden towards the back of Casa del Sol.

Part of the gardens. DS was a bit shocked to see all the statues without clothes. I told him a lot of statues are of naked people. Of course he wanted to know why. I have no clue.


Back of Casa del Sol.


Patio off Casa del Sol.


Gardens and part of Casa del Grande.

The next few photos are inside Casa del Sol. We couldn't believe it was just a guest house and the smaller guest house of the two. Casa del Mar is larger.



One of the sitting rooms. Even the ceiling is gorgeous. They have a small red carpet that leads through the rooms and they ask everyone stay on the carpet.


The second sitting room.

We headed back outside to go to Casa del Grande.

More of the gardens, getting closer to Casa del Grande.


Some ancient Egyptian statues he imported.

Finally we reached the front entry to Casa del Grande. It's amazing.



The front door is covered in cold leaf. They don't use this entry anymore because there's a tile mural on the floor on the other side of the door. They recently had it restored and too much foot traffic over almost a hundred years is causing damage to it.

We walked around the side and entered a large sitting room where cocktails were held every night before dinner. And yes Walt Disney came here to visit on occasion. You could just imagine everyone milling around with their drinks waiting for dinner.

Sitting room. These pictures aren't the greatest because the lighting was really low in here. The tapestries are hundreds of years old so the try to keep them out of the light.


The giant fireplace in the sitting room.


The ceiling panels in the sitting room. It's actually a false ceiling. They designed it to 'float' to protect the panels against any damage in case of an earthquake.


The dining room. Not a great picture but I had to share the ketchup and mustard bottles. Hearst insisted they use regular ketchup and mustard bottle because he liked to remember where his family came from. His father was a poor man until he came upon a silver mine.

Hearst would sit in the middle. The guide told us guests could stay as long as they wanted, but the longer you stayed the further you moved towards the ends of the table. Maybe a subtle hint.


Another restoration project. It was in a small sitting room. They started to clean the ceiling when they realized it's actually bright red. Our guide said due to all the years of guests smoking in here and using fireplaces it's covered in soot and grime. I'd love to see it when they're done.

We stopped in the theater, which of course was huge, and watched a short film of his old home movies.

Statues hold lamps all around the walls in the theater. Guests and Hearst himself would perform impromptu plays. He had tons of props and costumes for everyone.


Back outside to the tennis courts.

We walked to a second pool, this one indoors.

More Italian marble ladders, lightposts, and statues. The entire pool, floor and ceiling is covered in little glass tiles. Talk about time consuming construction!




That's a diving platform in the center. Stairs on the left side led up to it behind the wall.

We walked back to the bus and went back down to the tourist center. DS walked over to a donation box and donated a dollar of his own money. I was so proud of him. He decided to do it on his own. I've really tried to instill in him the importance of donating things from home like toys and clothes to Goodwill because they're are kids in the world who don't have many clothes or toys and would love to have the things we don't use anymore. It's nice to see we must be doing something right in raising him.

After the tour we made a quick stop at Seal Beach. We didn't stay long because it was so darn windy. The poor birds were trying to fly but they just sort of hovered until the gave up.

Not as many seals as the last time we were here. They're just returning from being out at sea.



They seemed especially noisy today.

A bunch of them were face to face like these guys swinging their heads into each other. We learned from a sign they're juvenile males sparring, practicing for the real thing when they get a little older. DH was here once when the large males were here. He said the fighting gets pretty brutal.

We drove back to Lompoc and dropped DFiL off as he was done for the day. We stopped for dinner, then went back to the hotel where we just hung out for the rest of the night.

Tomorrow is our last day in Lompoc and we'll be on our own again for most of the day as DFiL had to work. DH and I were getting so excited knowing it was almost time to surprise DS with the Disneyland part of the trip. At this point he still thought we were leaving in 2 days. Little did he know we're only halfway done with our trip!

Next up: Back to the mission, swimming, and the most fantastic Mexican food.

[Colexis Mom]

Beautiful pictures of Hearst Castle!

[chezp]

Oh wow - what a stunning place!

[KMB733]

WOW! That was a beautiful castle. Thanks for sharing lots of pictures!!

[jennie622]

Such beautiful pictures. We have Biltmore Estate in NC but we can't take ANY pictures of the interior so I can't share with you. I absolutely love homes like that!

[OhToodles!]

Gorgeous!
Can't wait for the reveal soon!