Shepley Family Reunion

Autumn and I spent the week in sunny Southern California last week playing and basking in the water near Lake Nacimiento, Paso Robles, and San Simeon. Some of these pictures will help give you a good visual of what really went on there.
We began by driving 12 or 13 hours on Saturday. Sunday was Grandma Shepley's 80th birthday, and EVERY cousin in the family made it to the event! It was quite impressive and a fun party.
Monday we swam in Lake Nacimiento. We would have liked to have had a ski boat, but the kayaks were fun and we had a great time cooling off in the water.
Tuesday we visited Hearst Castle. This is probably the 2nd largest mansion in the US (after the Biltmore) and was so lavish it was hard to imagine. The castle belonged to William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper guru from the early 1900's. He had four other estates, including an actual castle in England and another mansion on Long Island. Each room was decorated in some particular style, though much of the place seemed like a museum with expensive original art (paintings and sculpture) as well as imported old European ceilings that had been reconstructed at this ranch house. For 10 years, Hearst maintained a real zoo on the premise, complete with zebras (still a few there), elephants, a polar bear, and many other animals. He must have been pretty eccentric. Quite an amazing tour and I'd recommend it to anyone visiting Highway 1 and the central California coast.
Wednesday we hiked on San Simeon Point and had a great time being near the ocean. Just the smell alone reminds me of summers on Catalina Island!
Thursday we'd hoped to go to a lighthouse, but it was gated off. Instead, we found this beach with about 200 elephant seals. They lay in the sun and throw sand up on themselves. It was very interesting, though they smelled awful! We learned that they can weigh as much as 2.5 tons. "We're talkin' a ton of woman coming down at once..."
Friday we were supposed to visit Disneyland, but a frustrating freeway closure turned our 5 hour drive into a 9 hour drive and nearly foiled our plans. We overcame them, however, by extending our vacation one extra day and going to Disneyland on Saturday instead. We were glad we did because the best time to be there was from 8-10 am, and we rode every big attraction twice and most of the small ones at least once. It was a lot of fun. The longest line we waited in was 50 minutes for Roger Rabbit's Twirly Get Sick Not That Cool Of A Ride in ToonTown. We won't make that same mistake again. :-)
Overall, the whole trip was a smashing success and we were so glad we could go! Wish you all could have been there with us!