National Lampoon's (California) Vacation Part IV

Okay, so, I'm finally going to wrap up the end of the little trip Megan and I took out West over a montha ago. I know that I've kind of dragged this out for a while, and truth be told, I probably would have abandoned posting about if the last leg of our trip wasn't so cool. At least we thought so, so I hope that you do too.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13
Megan and I got up early and regretfully said goodbye to the craziest hotel we've seen, let alone stayed at, so we could make it to San Simeon in time for our 10:20 tour of the Hearst Castle. Now, for those not familiar with the Hearst Castle, this may seem like a pretty odd tourist destination. Especially when you consider that when Megan asked me before our trip what the one thing I wanted to do when we got California was, and I said that we should tour the Hearst Castle.

The reasons I wanted to take the tour are numerous, but basically it all starts with my love of the movie Citizen Kane. The movie was loosely based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), with Orson Welles' Charles Foster Kane standing in for Hearst. The movie even featured a fascimile of the Hearst Castle which they called Xanadu. After seeing Citizen Kane and sunsequent doccumentaries about Hearst, many of which feature the opulance of Hearst Castle, I knew that it would be quite a sight to behold first hand.



The pictures above are two I took from the visitors' center. Before his death, the castle sat on a huge chunk of property that was 250,000 acres in size. Big enough to house Hearst's own private landing strip for his plane, the castle itself, servants quarters, a ranch for the ranchers, cattle, and at one time the world's largest private zoo. Not only does the property still house cattle, but other animals from the zoo also roam the hills to this day, including Roosevelt elk and zebras! The only way allowed to the castle is to take a bus for a 5 mile ride from the visitors' center.


The first stop on the tour is the Neptune Pool which looks out to the mountains of the central coast. One really cool aspect of the design of the pool is that it looks completely level, when in actuality it is 3 ft. deep at one end and 10 ft. deep at the other.


This is the rear entrance to one of the guest houses, the Casa del Sol. This particular guest house overlooked the pool and also connected to the pool's changing rooms. This was one of three guest houses at the castle and with 18 rooms and 2,604 square feet, it's probably bigger than most visitors regular houses.


The front of Casa del Sol.

One of the bedrooms inside Casa del Sol.


This is the exterior and entrance to the main house at the castle, Casa Grande which is 60,645 square feet. To give you some perspective as to how big it actually is on the outside, those crosses at the top are 8 ft. tall. Casa Grande is so big in fact that if you want to see the whole thing, you have to take multiple tours.


Here's a shot of the first of 5 rooms we got to see at in Casa Grande. This one was called the Assembly Room and it was freakin' huge. I don't remember the exact dimensions, but our tour guide said that the square footage for the room itself was bigger than the average four bedroom house. My favorite architectural detail about the room was that the ceiling could be raised and lowered to better suit the artwork on the walls when they were occasionally switched out.

Here's a shot of the Refectory, the only dining room at the castle. Supposedly, newer or favored guests got to sit closer to Hearst. Those he was tired of were seated farther and farther away from him.

This is a detail of the Refectory ceiling.


Here's a shot I stole off of the web of the Billiard Room. Since they don't allow flash photography and there's scaffolding up for restoration they're doing to the ceiling, I couldn't get a decent shot. But I wanted to post it to point out how insanely rich this guy was. That ceiling that they're restoring? It's a15th century ceiling from Barbastro in northeastern Spain which Hearst had shipped over and installed. Think about that. That ceiling dates back to before Columbus "discovered" America and this guy had it put in his house. Normally, that would probably be astounding enough in and of itself, but its even more so when you consider that he ended making it the centerpiece for what basically equates to his "rumpus room."

This is Hearst's private movie theatre. Keeping in mind that its the biggest room in Casa Grande, it kind of puts your home theatre to shame, huh? It actually reminded me somewhat of the old Westroads Theatres inside the mall. Except much, much nicer.

Detail of a statue in the theatre room.


The last stop on the tour was Hearst's indoor pool, or the Roman Pool. This pool was amazing. Ornate and beautiful as it was, it was seldom used as the pool was 10 ft. deep throughout and unfortunately, most people at the time didn't know how to swim. My favorite element was the little alcove you can see in the upper right which was also the diving platform. By the way, just so you know, if it looks like gold at the Hearst Castle, it is. All that gold tile you see in the Roman Pool is tiles of actual 24k gold sandwiched between tiles of clear glass. Megan and are actually thinking of using a similar technique when we remodel our bathroom...

Another shot of the Roman Pool.

And that was it. After taking the bus back to the visitors' center, Megan and I made our way back down the coast, but not before we stopped to check out some seals hanging out on the beach.

I know that they look like they're all dead, but trust me, they were just sunning themselves.

Anyhow, we drove all the way back to LA and stayed at the Holiday Inn by LAX. Our final night was unspectacular, as I'm sure any stay at a Holiday Inn just having finished immersing ourselves in the architecture of the Madonna Inn and the Hearst Castle.

Before I go, though, we have one last picture that I snapped in LAX waiting to board our plane.

Check out the Rear Admiral on the laptop. Only in LA, my friends, only in LA...

LOL KIRBY

I promise to finish my little Goin' Back to Cali travelogue next time, but Max's post today prompted a quick little aside.

You see, Max is trying to start a new internet meme, akin to LOL CATS (or its' progeny LOL BOTS). This time, instead of taking cutesy pictures of cats out of context and putting funny text over the top, Max wants to use the art of comics icon Jack "The King" Kirby.

I thought the idea was genius, so during my break at work today I threw a couple together for him. Max liked them so much he suggested I post them here, so he could link to them. If you're not familiar with Jack Kirby or LOL CATS you won't get them at all, but trust us, they're hilarious.

National Lampoon's (California) Vacation Part III

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12 CONTINUED
I last left off with Megan and I spotting the Madonna Inn from the highway. Once we saw it, we both knew that we had to stay there. First off, it's a hotel built into the side of a mountain. Second, the exterior of the hotel looks like a plantation house designed by way of the Swiss Alps for an Old West cattle rancher. Third, the hotel contains has 109 totally unique rooms, the most famous (according to internet research I conducted after our stay there) of which are the Love Nest and the Caveman Room (which is often booked up a year in advance), but my personal favorite was by far the Cabin Still. And that's just the hotel! The Madonna Inn also has two restaurants (one with a 28-foot golden tree made of copper tubing and other metal leftovers from construction projects), a pastry shop, cocktail lounge, and a convention facility that holds 2,600 people. Finally, there's the 2,200-acres on which it sits that not only features a ranch complete with grazing horses but also the 1,292-foot Cerro San Luis, a mountain whose trails have long been popular with local hikers.

Now that I've begun describing it, I know that there is no way, however, to adequately describe it's lovable, awe-inspiring absurdity. Even Umberto Eco had a hard time in his book Travels in Hyperreality when he gave it a shot: "...the poor words with which natural human speech is provided, cannot suffice to describe the Madonna Inn... Let's say that Albert Speer, while leafing through a book on Gaudi, swallowed an overgenerous dose of LSD and began to build a nuptial catacomb for Liza Minnelli. But that doesn't give you an idea. Let's say ... Chopin's Sonata in B-flat sung by Perry Como in an arrangement by Liberace and accompanied by the Marine Band."

Bel Mooney, writer for London's Guardian newspaper had a similar take and wrote that the hotel "looks like Fred Flintstone got it together with Barbie one night, and - high on a cocktail of mead and pink champagne - scribbled crazy plans on the side of a rock."

Needless to say, the Madonna Inn is like nothing Megan and I had seen before. Knowing that we may not ever have the opportunity to do so again, we booked a room and stayed for the night. Here's what we saw:

Here's the Madonna Inn sign we spotted outside the hotel the night we checked in.

Here's what the Madonna Inn sign looks like in the light of day.

Here's a shot of the hotel itself, along with some grazing horses.

Here's the front desk, with a walkway that connects to the shops and restaurants.

Here's a shot of the interior of the Madonna Inn Steakhouse that we took the morning we left. Note the tasteful and um, understated use of pink. Yeah, that's it tasteful and understated. Anyhow, the use of pink is so prevalent at the Madonna Inn, you'd think they owned stock in the color.

Here's a portion of the Madonna Inn Hotel and Cerro San Luis, the mountain that it's built into.

Here's the staircase leading up to the room where Megan and I stayed.

Here's the view from the parking lot outside our room.

Here's the inside of our room, named Currier and Ives.

Here's a closeup shot of the gold lamé wallpaper and the ridiculous light fixtures in the room.

Here's a shot of the opposite wall of our room. The wall is made or real stone. Note the sparkles in the ceiling as well. And is it just me, but does that flatscreen TV on the left, although welcome, look totally out of place?

Here's the bathroom in our room, which doesn't really come close to capturing it's rococo meets colonial insanity. Note the prints on the wall, which are reproductions of those created by the room's namesakes, 19th Century printmakers Currier and Ives.

Even the ice bucket and wrappers for the glasses are gold and pink!

Here's our room key, stationery, and pen. Note the multiple shades of pink, most of which don't really go together.

Aside from the Madonna Inn, the town of San Luis Obispo also seemed to have a lot offer. Megan and went and strolled around the downtown area which reminded us both of Mass Street in Lawrence quite a bit. Which is probably due to the influence of nearby Cal Poly. After dinner, and a long day spent mostly in the car, we finally made our way back to our bed at the Madonna Inn for some much needed sleep. The next day, however, would mean even more driving as we continued on to the end of our journey North in San Simian.

National Lampoon's (California) Vacation Part II

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12
Having hit the Getty and the touristy Hollywood Walk of Fame, we didn't really deem it necessary to spend another night in Los Angeles. So we loaded up the rental and checked out of our room at the Best Western Hollywood Hills Hotel. Our hotel, by the way, had by far, the nicest room I have ever stayed in at a Best Western. I know that may not sound like much of a compliment, but Megan and I stayed at Best Western hotels in both Florence and Venice in Italy, and neither of those matched their Hollywood counterpart's elegance. That said, we were never forced to call the front desk in Italy because 15-20 jackasses decided to form a chorus and start singing Latino pop songs around the pool at 3:00 AM either. To their credit, the front desk squashed the little sing-a-long in a hurry, so I'm not going to hold it against them. Let's just say that I was extra thankful the next morning that the hotel was connected to the 101 Coffee Shop, a somewhat famous LA coffee house. Anyhow, if you ever want to visit Hollywood, I would actually recommend this hotel because it's cheap, the rooms are nice, and its a good location.

Before totally making our exodus from LA, we still had a couple of stops to make. We began by checking out the Los Angeles Farmers Market and having a delicious breakfast there at the Kokomo Kafe, where Megan swears she saw Noah Baumbach. After browsing the shops and stands at the Farmers Market, we did a little shopping at an outstanding outdoor mall right next door called The Grove. Both the Farmers Market and The Grove are definitely worth checking out if you're in the area, especially if you like shopping. And unlike Rodeo Drive, which we cruised through next, you'll actually be able to afford to by stuff there. Since neither of us saw much point in shopping at stores that sell purses that cost more than our cars, we didn't even stop along Rodeo and continued to Santa Monica Pier.



I know that Santa Monica Pier is the West Coast's oldest pier and is designated a National Historic Landmark, but really, it's kind of lame. It's probably a cooler place to be for kids, or if the weather is nice, but since we had neither of these acting in our favor, we were pretty underwhelmed. After we had enough of the cold wind, the fine mist it was nearly soaking us with, and the plethora of annoying tourists, we grabbed some carnival-style snacks for the road, but not before Megan re-lived her favorite scene from Big and made a wish at Zoltar.


Megan must have wished for better weather, because as soon as we got back in the car and began making our way North up the Pacific Coast Highway, the sun came out and it was nice enough to visit a beach in Malibu.

After our relaxing walk along the beach, continued our trip up North. The drive along Pacific Coast Highway was amazing. The highway twists and turns along the coast and offers majestic views of the ocean on one side, with equally captivating views of the mountains and valleys on the other. If you're ever out West, a road trip along the PCH is well worth your time.


As I've been saying, the drive North towards San Simian was spectacular. However, the only real SNAFU we had took place during this portion of our trip. Along the PCH, it seemed like you came across a new town every 5 minutes or so. Seriously, most towns just bled into new ones, with little if any space in between. This seemed pretty logical to me, as everyone knows beachfront property is in such high demand. Needless to say, I wasn't really too concerned about my gas gauge as their seemed to be no shortage of towns to stop and fill up. That is, of course, until it got dark and the fuel light came on. Suddenly, we were miles away from civilization and looked to be in dire straights. The situation got worse, when we saw a sign for a town called Lompoc, which directed us away from the main highway. Seeing little choice, we took the road leading to Lompoc which seemed to lead us only deeper into the mountains. It was only after we had already committed to driving to Lompoc that we were graced with a sign which read Lompoc: 30 Miles. I don't remember ever being so stressed about running out of gas. As we drove up and down the mountain roads, and I watched the gas gauge creep closer and closer to E, Megan and I began taking note of the location of call boxes along the road and how far we were from each one as we passed them. Did I mention I had to pee like a race horse, as well? When we finally saw the lights of Lompoc, I was elated, but pretty certain that if I didn't make the right call on where to actually get gas, we could still stall out in the middle of town. Luckily, I took a quick left, and found a gas station with fuel to spare. Unfortunately, the didn't have a restroom and I had to drive across to the street to a bowling alley. Definitely a harrowing experience, but it was also comforting to find that no matter where you go in this country of ours, bowling alleys are not only a mainstay, but they're also pretty much the same and attract pretty much the same kind of people.

After our little adventure in Lompoc, we took a highway out of town and linked back up with the PCH and once we hit San Luis Obispo, we decided it was time to find a hotel for the night. We hadn't booked a hotel for the night since we were unsure exactly how far North we would get before we wanted to call it a day. Cruising down the highway we passed a Motel 6, which sounded good enough especially considering the Lompoc mishap, but we decided to check out the next couple of exits first. And are we ever glad we did, because just up the road we saw a structure illuminating the night sky that caused us both to exclaim "What was that?!?" What it was, my friends was where we ended up staying the night, a hotel called The Madonna Inn.

Since the Madonna Inn is worthy of a post all it's own, I'll leave my little travelogue here until next time.

National Lampoon's (California) Vacation: Part I

So, a few weeks ago now, as I alluded to in a previous post Megan and I ventured west to California to attend the wedding of our friends Tim and Shanna. Since we were already spending the money to fly out there, we decided to make a short vacation out of it. Here are some pics from our vacation as well as some stories, descriptions, and snarky comments. Enjoy!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9

After a long day of travel, spent in planes and a rental car, we arrived at our hotel in Laguna Beach (The REAL OC). We met up with everybody that was already there and made our way to a local eatery and hung out with everyone over drinks and food. Since very few of us in attendance live in Omaha anymore, it was a nice chance to catch up with the old crew. However, exhaustion due to our long day of travel caused Megan and I to call it an early night, so we didn't get a chance to take any pictures. Instead, here's a picture of our hotel, the Vacation Village to make y'all jealous...

Before you get too jealous, I should point out that it was pretty cool in Laguna Beach when we were there with highs in the 60's. Also, our room was not one with an ocean view, but rather a highway view. So instead of the soothing sounds of the ocean carrying us off to dreamland, we got the not-so-soothing sounds of near constant traffic.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10

The day of the wedding. Most of the day prior to the big event was spent chill-axin'. We ate some great local fare, having breakfast as a french-style restaurant C'est La Vie and lunch at Taco Loco, walked along the beach, and Megan even got a massage. It was a great dray spent getting some much appreciated down-time.

The wedding itself was beautiful, touching, and even pretty hilarious at times. The ceremony was held intimate open-air space that really made . I wish I got more pictures of the bride and groom, but I never want to be that guy, you know? Anyhow, the reception was also quite the affair, with dinner, dancing, and drinks, in an open-air tent. And the drinks? Complimentary champagne and beer. But not just any beer. Complimentary Stella. That, my friends, is my idea of a reception.

Here's a shot of Ben, Max, Zach, myself, Tim, and Tristan hamming it up old-school for the camera. I tell ya, you can take the boys outta North High, but you can't take North High outta the boys.

Tristan and his daughter Finley. Finley and I share the same birthday, which is cool, but it freaks me out when I think how she's exactly 30 years younger than me.

Ben and me enjoying free drinks and looking damn good doing it.

Megan and Katie on the dancefloor, showing those California girls how its done.

Nate rocking the mic to N2Deep's Back to the Hotel. Nate would only do it if we threw down some scrilla, but it was definitely worth the money. No joke, it was flat-out awesome.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11

Megan and I said our goodbyes and made our way to LA, and hit the Getty Museum. The museum and grounds are works of art in and of themselves, with a great view of LA and some pretty tasty food as well. So, even if you're not into to art, it's worth checking it out if you're ever in LA. Other than that, we didn't do much in LA on Saturday, other than walk down Hollywood Boulevard (a little too late at night for my comfort level) and have a delicious meal at Prizzi's Piazza. Megan and I highly recommend eating there, if only for the Pane all'Aglio aka Prizzi's famous garlic stix aka heaven. Anyhow, here are some shots of the Getty Center. Note my un-official Husker's "got defense?" shirt. Nebraska represent!

So, that's it for now. I'll be back next time with more pics and stories from our trip.