Day 3: Big Sur to Solvang by way of Hearst Castle

8:30 am: We woke up and strolled down the dirt driveway to the main cabin for breakfast. Adam and I shared a stack of buttermilk pancakes, side of crisp bacon and really deliciously brown and crispy home fries. Coming off our lackluster has brown experience at the Duck Club, Adam interrogated our server on how the Deetjen home fries were prepared. Brown and crispy with a sprinkle of scallions. Topped off with mugs of organic coffee, our breakfast at Deetjen's hit the spot and fueled us for our morning drive down Highway 1 toward Hearst Castle.

12:45 pm: The weather was gorgeous and our drive through Big Sur was breathtaking. We stopped every 10 minutes and we have the pictures to prove it. Unbelievable cliffs, crashing waves and giant boulder islands in the middle of the ocean inhabited by seals and birds. We overshot Hearst Castle by 6 miles and ended up in Cambria before we turned around. [The entrance is poorly marked when you're coming from the north.] While the scenery was incredible, the lunch options were practically nonexistent so I grabbed Luna bars and oranges from our snack stash before we headed into the visitor's center. Fortunately, I think, there was a small cafe in the visitor's center run by Aramark. Adam ate a chicken wrap and I ate a chicken salad. Notice the word, "ate," the meal was unremarkable and served merely as fuel.

1:20 pm: We climbed on the tour bus for Hearst Castle's Tour 2 which covers the private residences of Hearst. We saw the kitchen, Marion Davies' room, WR's room, office and other guest rooms. My favorites were the kitchen where I drooled over the vast expanses of counter space and this cool guest room that was a duplex: a sitting room with a loft for the bedroom and an interior staircase connecting the two. We headed back to the visitor's center after the tour where I become fixated on getting a pressed penny, but I didn't had any quarters. Adam thought starting a collection of pressed pennies was ridiculous, but was kind enough to find two quarters for me which I used to procure a Hearst Castle pressed penny.

3:30 pm: Driving out of Hearst Castle, we turned left at Highway 1 and continued on or journey southbound. We drove through San Luis Obispo where I chattered on and on about how I thought it was weird that some people referred to it as SLO calling it "slow" and why one would want to be called slow especially if you were somewhat slow. Eventually, we switched over to Highway 101 toward Buellton and Solvang where we were staying for the night.

6:15 pm: After checking into our hotel in Solvang, we drove a few miles over to Buellton to the Hitching Post II for dinner. The restaurant was featured in Sideways and they BBQ their steaks over these wood chips and baste them with a special sauce. I ordered the 7 ounce Top Sirloin and Adam enjoyed a 10 ounce New York. Our dinners came with a veggie tray, garlic toast, salad and a shrimp cocktail of bay shrimp [super tiny pellet sized shrimp]. All in all a tasty meal that more than made up for a dismal lunch.

Nitpicky Endnote: Adam and I had an inane argument about whose steak was cheaper per ounce. We were both right, but I maintain that I was more right. He argued that his 10 ounce steak was $27 or $2.70 per ounce while my 7 ounce steak was $19 or $2.714 per ounce. However, I pointed out that since he bought 10 ounces of steak, he was getting somewhat of a volume discount and therefore the appropriate comparison would be a 10 ounce Sirloin versus the 10 ounce New York. Had I bought a 10 ounce Top Sirloin rather than the 7 ounce, my steak would have been $23 or $2.30 per ounce which is significantly cheaper than $2.70 per ounce. There you have it...I'm more right.