Kelly's World

I awoke in the morning to the sound of a running creek, in the most comfortable bed I’ve ever experienced. I’d managed to wake up naturally before the alarm went off, which was especially pleasing. Being on a tight schedule with our holiday had meant most morning’s I’d set an alarm to ensure we weren’t late. I showered and packed up our gear, and made another hot lemsip drink I’d picked up at the chemist the day before. I was still feeling pretty fatigued from the flu, but I was determined to have a better day.

We met everyone up at the main lodge for breakfast; it was a big wooden cabin with quaint decorations. This place really cemented for me that I was in America, compared to anywhere else we had been. It resembled the small town places I’ve seen on the tv – the two bowser petrol station, the wooden cabins, the patriotic flag flying out the front. After breakfast everyone came down to look at our cabin and enjoy a cup of tea before we packed up and continued on our way. Unfortunately it was still quite foggy, so rather than redo everything we missed the previous day due to the fog, we continued towards Pismo Beach. The fog made for some beautiful moments though, where you could see the coast line and the fog over the Pacific Ocean.

Once again I don’t remember much from the car trip as I kept dozing off. In hindsight, it was perfect timing that the two days I’d be at the worst with my flu would also be the two days spent mainly sitting down. The copious amounts of napping in the car probably helped me to get over the flu a lot faster than I normally would have.

At one of the numerous stops for photos of the coastline we heard some seals down in the water below the cliffs. I tried to  video tape it (you couldn’t see anything in the video, just hear the sounds) then we continued on our way. Once we reached Piedras Blancas we found a beach with an entire colony of Elephant Seals, so merely hearing the seals before that seemed so insignificant. The smell was a little bit on the nose, but you could get so close to the seals it was incredible. The only time I’ve seen anything like it was when we visited Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Impressively, they had staff wandering around answering questions – quite the educational place!

I also managed to spend a fair bit of time in the car park, namely due to a beautiful old car with a matching caravan and bicycle. Unfortunately I don’t know what make and model it was, but it reminded me of the old Chevy Bel-airs (this car had Holiday written on the side). I circled the car a few times in awe, then circled some more video taping it. I briefly chatted with the owner and commended him on his “vee-hick-call” before continuing on to see the seals. The car definitely got a lot of looks, and more than a few photographs.You’ll have to look at my video to see it; I’m afraid to say I didn’t take a decent photo.

After the seals we continued on to Hearst Castle. Before planning the trip to the US I had actually never heard of this place, but once I had seen the website I knew it was one of the places I was most excited to see. It looked simply amazing, and once we reached there it exceeded all my expectations. The pools were my favourite areas by far, and I could tell as I made my way through the house that he had had exquisite taste. Amy and Pauline had gone on a different tour since they had done the first one last time they visited the castle, and I was a little disappointed I couldn’t have seen both. I just couldn’t get enough of looking around! I think I could have spent an hour in each room and still not see everything. So much detail!

After Hearst Castle we made our way to our accommodation in Pismo Beach. The lady checking us in was a little rude, but in all fairness she had 8 of us arrive at once and people waiting behind us to get checked in. I think that would make anyone flustered. I apologised to the people behind us (although the fact it was taking a long time *wasn’t* our fault), and they didn’t seem upset, so that was good. Finally we got our rooms and made our way there.

I was excited the room we were given was massive. Huge king size bed, a bath, and lots of living room area. We had received vouchers for a free drink in the bar each, so we returned upstairs to meet up with everyone. Mat and Pauline tried some random beer while I went with the standard vodka and lemonade, and donated my voucher to Mat. Everyone decided to go out for dinner, but as I was feeling extremely tired again and just wanting to kick the illness I opted to stay in. Mum and Amy also ended up staying behind, and we took the opportunity to use the laundry facilities.

After the washing was done, I made my way back to our room. I had planned on having a bath followed by sleep but the laundry had taken so long that in the end I decided to have another lemsip and tgo straight to bed. I had enough time to boil the jug when Mat wandered in, extremely intoxicated. He told me about some gay waiter at the Japanese Restaurant they’d gone to for dinner, and that the guy had apparently had the hots for him (according to Madonna). He then passed out on top of the bed sheets. It seemed like they’d had quite the dinner! I had my drink, turned the lights off, and fell into another deep sleep. We had reached the halfway point in our holiday.

For Amy’s version of events you can see her blog post here.

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