California

...appropriated in what had to be dubious circumstances displayed in a haphazard arrangement that could have the effect of making what may have been a magnificent piece into looking like a piece of junk displayed on a fold up table at an estate sale after the passing, in clutter, of a sadly isolated dementia patient in a dying city in New Jersey.

(I live in New Jersey now.)

Of course, it's probably more than 30 years since I went there, but I remember my wife and I shaking our heads that we'd spent an otherwise beautiful day, and some quantity of money, on that tour. But yes, the grounds, at least the part not involved with the castle itself, were beautiful.

I do remember the tour guide asking the group about what they knew of William Randolph Hearst and grimacing my response about Hearst inciting with yellow journalism an American Colonial War.

Rosebud, I guess...


Were I to pass again through San Simeon - which is unlikely - I'd keep going until I got to Big Sur. I must have drove past the Castle 50 times before, out of curiosity, I checked the Castle out with my wife.

We were not amused.