Day 9

My day began with a 3 1/2 mile run in ideal conditions - 55 degrees, low humidity, slight breeze, and a beautiful view of the ocean for most of the run. And then some quiet time with God on the beach - it doesn't get much better than that.

Then came our trip to the Hearst Castle - or what William R. Hurst called his casa grande. The place is Biltmorelike: a gazillion acres, a bazillion rooms, two huge swimming pools, tennis courts, and on and on and on. But no cable TV, so not interested in buying it. It took 28 years to complete and most of it was built during the first half of last century. Mr. Hurst even collected all kinds of exotic animals and put them on the mountains surrounding casa grande. Some are still around - we took a picture of some zebras after we turned back out on Highway 1 and headed south.

Shortly after we started the last 40 miles of the Pacific Coast Highway, we carried out our lone good deed of the day - I believe that makes a total of 13. We've probably seen close to 100 bikers along the PCH and most of them are working hard because the highway is so mountainous. We saw one biker ahead of us who we could tell was really struggling. We pulled over to the side of the road, matched his speed, and then Pee Wee rolled down the passenger window and handed him a cold water bottle. At first he was hesitant, then he laughed, reached out and grabbed the water, and then thanked us as we sped away.

Then on to Hollywood. Yes - we've been kind of bumping around the state with no clear plan, but we do have a plan for the last day and a half. We are entering the insanity of Hollyood, CA, and we've already experienced some of the craziness this evening. Our first stop was Grauman's Chinese Theater and the walk of stars and handprints of stars. Then we took a long walk to the famous Hollywood and Vine corner, and then made the dumbest decision in the 4 years we've been travelling. We thought we would walk to the Paramount Studios. We didn't really know how far it was, so we headed off kind of blindly and ended up wasting an hour and wearing ourselves out. The stars have their walk and we have our own, but ours is based on no talent and stupidity. At least on our return to Hollywood Blvd. we did get to meet Batman, Jimmy Hendrix, The Joker, Don King, Michael Jackson times 3, Charlie Chaplin, and a few others. I even got off a good single leg attack on an action figure - maybe a transformer?

Before our walk of stupidity we were walking along Hollywood Blvd, and were asked if we wanted to be asked a couple of street questions by a couple of assistants for the Jimmy Kimmel show.  We're not sure but we think we may have reached a greater level of stupidity by agreeing to and answering the question. We'll see in about an hour - they say it's going to be on TV tonight.

As we approached the area where our car was parked, we as everyone else were attacked by the various tour salesman, but we stood our ground and turned them down. But tomorrow we're going to take the plunge and see what Hollywood has to offer to two middle aged men from Georgia who have their own brand of insanity.