As the sun shone we rose to a calm day on the west coast road. This morning we visited the castle on the hill, Hearst Castle. This was built by William Randolph Hearst in the early to mid 1900's and sits on the hills above San Simeon on the Hearst cattle ranch. The media tycoon, who then got into movies, built the castle in a position that he and his family used to ride horses to and camp in tents. He ended up building a Spanish styled "village" to show off to friends and important people. Famous guests include Winston Churchill, Bob Hope and Charlie Chaplin. He had his own zoo with polar bears, zebra and even kangaroos. At a time when money was tight the animals were sold to Californian zoo's but, some (including zebra) escaped and are now wild in the hills (or at least their descendents are!). We actually saw the descendents of Hearst's zebra mingling with the cows further on our drive south. The Main house sits on the highest point with 3 guest houses around them, 2 pools, tennis courts and lots of ancient statues, tapestries and other art work from Italy, Greece and Egypt, some of which is thousands of years old.

From San Simeon we headed south again along the coast. We stopped in a parking bay for lunch. No vegemite today, we were spoilt with salad, salami and cheese. As we drove further south we dropped into towns to see what they looked like and had to offer. There was even time for a swing on the beach for Tilds. Highway 101 started to move inland as we got closer to our next nights stop, the traffic started to build as well. As we pulled into Santa Barbara the chief navagator was on top of things and we quickly found our hotel on State Street, the main street of town. As we got out the car the bored and tired kids suddenly perked up at the sight of the pool. It was made even better when they found out it was heated. Just as quickly as it was to unload (not really fast), the bathers were on and they were in. We were stoked too because they just needed supervising from someone older than 12. Emily had duty of care, so we could drink beer and have some nibbles. Finally a time when everyone had a win!

As the sun went down we did need to slow down the party as the kids were thinking about dinner, when they finally got out of the pool. After 3 weeks we found a Denny's that was open. For those not familiar it is a family restuarant with cheap food and drink. Entree and mains for 6 people just over $100 USD. The food was good and satisfied the stomachs.