Hearst Castle is located near the unincorporated community of San Simeon, California, approximately 250 miles (400 km) from both Los Angeles and San Francisco, and 43 miles (69 km) from San Luis Obispo at the northern end of San Luis Obispo County. The estate itself is five miles (eight kilometers) inland atop a hill of the Santa Lucia Range at an altitude of 1,600 feet (490 m). The region is sparsely populated because the Santa Lucia Range abuts the Pacific Ocean, which provides dramatic seaside vistas but few opportunities for development and hampered transportation. The surrounding countryside visible from the mansion remains largely undeveloped. Its entrance is adjacent to San Simeon State Park.
Hearst Castle was built on Rancho Piedra Blanca that William Randolph Hearst's father, George Hearst, originally purchased in 1865. The younger Hearst grew fond of this site over many childhood family camping trips. He inherited the ranch, which had grown to 250,000 acres (1,012 km2) and 14 miles (23 km) of coastline, from his mother Phoebe Hearst in 1919. Although the large ranch already had a Victorian mansion, the location selected for Hearst Castle was undeveloped, atop a steep hill whose ascent was a dirt path accessible only by foot or on horseback over 5 miles (8 km) of cutbacks. Now is connected with narrow curly asphalt road. Al visitors cars are parked down at the entrance and transportation is done by small 20 passengers buses with guides every hour. The Castle is beautiful like similar castles around Loire and Rein rivers in Europe. We have taken many photos shown in this blog-albums.
Redwood National and State Park is located in northernmost coastal California—about 325 miles north of San Francisco, CA. Roughly 50 miles long, the parklands stretch from near the Oregon border in the north to the Redwood Creek watershed southeast of Orick, CA. Five information centers are located along this north-south corridor.
Redwood National and State Park is generally oriented along the north-south U.S. 101 highway corridor between Crescent City and Orick, CA (~40 miles). Numerous other roads and highways (including scenic drives) provide access to areas throughout the parks.
We entered in Redwood Park from Crescent City. We reached the coast of California leaving I-5 in Grand Pass, OR and driving southwest on Road 199, on our way from Seattle, WA to Puerto Penasco, Mexico in the end of July 2016, till connection with US 101 before Crescent. We stopped to take some photos when we first noticed tick tees around the road and later on the way till Eureka, CA when we slept first evening. We traveled almost 600 miles (1,000 km) from Seattle to Eureka. Redwood Park was the only interested environment around the road. Later we sow similar tick cheddar trees around Downtown Carmel, CA and on our way back to Seattle in Yosemite Nat. Park. We took only 30 photos shown in this small post-album.
