Cambria, Part of Christmas 2012

This year, we got to spend Christmas with Boyce's family down in Bakersfield. And boy did we have a great time! We drove down to Bako the 20th and were the first of many family to arrive. Boyce's parents were kind enough to let us leave Gracie with them for a night, and so on the 21st we bid goodbye and headed off to Cambria (the Central Coast) for a quick getaway (the last mini-vaca before this little guy is born and life once again is turned on its head!). We got into Cambria and immediately headed to Hearst Castle for a tour. We'd heard a lot about this place and that it was worth a trip if you're in the area, and man am I glad we went. It was INCREDIBLE! The guy was loaded. And I mean, he made Donald Trump look like a miser. Mr. Hearst grew up in a wealthy family and became a true lover of museum and arts, so when he got the chance, he built this enormous castle in his favorite part of the world (i.e. the Central Coast) and then furnished the place with all sorts of amazing antiques and pieces of art from Europe. Check out a few of these pictures.

He collected all sorts of tapestries.

The dining hall. On the walls as decorations were choir stalls from ancient monasteries.

After we took the tour, we walked along the castle grounds. What would we see? Two pools; one Roman and one Greek. Check. Beautiful, lush gardens. Check. Citrus trees; not for food but solely for ornamentation. Check. Seriously C-R-A-Z-Y. But I loved it. I'm so glad we went!

The Greek pool.

After our castle excursion, we settled into our hotel, which was right along the beach, and then headed in to check out the town. It was a really cute little town with lots of fun shops. We saw signs pointing to a Christmas Festival & Bazaar at some lodge that we thought might be fun, so we wandered up to that. The bazaar part was pretty small, but the festival part was amazing! They had strung so many Christmas lights through their gardens and grounds. It was like stepping right into some Hallmark movie (I say that with delight because I LOVE the Christmas Hallmark movies!).

Then we went to dinner. We'd heard all about this place called Madeline's, so we opted to go there. Boy, were we in for an interesting meal. :) It was a small restaurant, which meant the tables were really close together. Which resulted in a table of four "shushing" the slightly drunk woman in the table of 3 seated directly behind us. Which then resulted in the slightly drunk woman purposefully talking louder the entire rest of her meal, and purposefully "shushing" the table of 4 anytime she found opportunity. Oh, and the slightly drunk woman continued to freely help herself to more wine. But was that it? Nope.  Then the owner of the restaurant, after hearing we were from Utah, plopped a chair down at our table and chatted with us for probably 20 minutes. Which was totally fun and cool, until our bananas foster started to melt because we were waiting for him to leave before diving into it. :) Ah, Madeline's, we'll never forget you!

The next morning, we decided to go check out the beaches that were home to native elephant seals (one of the main things to do in this little town). They were really weird interesting. And very, very ugly uniquely formed. But it was easy to become riveted by the little babies nursing, or the odd way they communicated, or the seemingly impossible task of moving their rolly-polly, whale-ish bodies.

Mama and baby.

Don't they look...prehistoric?

Afterward, we stopped into town and wandered through just a couple of shops, found a fun little seafood joint for lunch, and then made our way home to Boyce's parents.

Final getaway before new baby comes. Check. :)