Fire!

Wednesday.
Yesterday took us as far as Oceano, some 30 miles south of Morro Bay, where we enjoy our first RV park offering a heated pool and jacuzzi. Too bad they close at 10pm! We could have stayed there all night *smile*

Miles travelled by RV: 221
Current location: Oceano, CA
Next stops: Hearst Castle, Big Sur, Monterrey, and Santa Cruz, CA

Today we headed to San Simeon to visit Hearst Castle. This 'ranch' was built by William Randolph Hearst to house his art collection and to entertain his guests - pretty impressive and with awesome ocean and mountain views. We're taking a 75 minute experience tour offering a great overview of his property: 1 main house with 110 (!) rooms, 3 guest houses, and 2 pools. He also had tennis courts and his very own movie theatre! That's one fine summer cottage, he? *smile*

(more pictures at: http://galerie.photo-fisch.de)

Afterwards we're heading further north along scenic Highway 1 that winds along the coast. About 20 miles south of Big Sur
we're stopped by a car coming from the opposite direction, it's passengers waving at us. The road is closed ahead because of a fire and we better turn around, they say.
Hm, what do we make of this? Should we trust them? Maybe someone else will tell us the same thing? We didn't have much gas when we reached Hearst Castle, had returned to the nearest gas station, but only gotten very little gas as it seemed awefully exensive there. Turning around here because of the fire could run us out of gas now... Eventually, at some turnout along the road we see smoke, we stop and are told by some other travellers, that the road indeed is closed and will be for at least another 6 hours making it midnight until anyone might be able to pass.

(more pictures at: http://galerie.photo-fisch.de)

They advise us to just spend the night out here. Certainly, tonight no-one would fine us for overnight camping while it is usually forbidden not to stay at designated campgrounds. Well, not exactly where we wanted to spend the night (no wifi, hehe), but we wanted to boondock at least once anyway. We heat up all our left-over food for dinner, have a glass of wine, and go to bed.

Miles travelled by RV: about 117
Current location: about 15 miles south of Big Sur
Next stop: Sacramento, CA