Post by goldensandslash on Aug 4, 2019 13:25:26 GMT
Since mainstreet is slacking off and not writing one of these, I guess it's up to me.
Hi everyone, GoldenSandslash here. For those not in the know, mainstreet and I took a road trip around California a couple weeks ago. Mainstreet normally writes one of these things every time he goes anywhere, but he doesn't seem to be doing that this time, so this one's on me.
So, for those who don't know, mainstreet lives in San Diego and I live in Anaheim. This means it took him a bit to come up to get me before we even started. But he made it, we did a little bit of preliminary planning, and then off we went.
The first place we stopped was Sequoia National Park, where we saw a tree named General Sherman. This is the biggest tree in the world. There are some that are taller, and some that have fatter trunks, but in terms of overall cubic volume? None beat General Sherman. It measures at 52.5 thousand cubic feet (roughly 1500 cubic meters, for those of you on the metric system). Mainstreet had already seen it before, but for me, it was my first time.
After this, we got a room in Visalia (for the rest of this post, assume we get rooms as we go along, I'm not gonna point it out each time), and then went to a Minor League Baseball game, because mainstreet is a HUGE baseball fan. I mean, so am I, but to a far lesser extent. We saw Storm vs Rawhide, and Storm ended up winning that game.
The next place we went was Sutter's Mill. For mainstreet, it was his first time there. For me, it was my second, but the first was twenty years ago and I barely remember it. Those of you who live in California may know Sutter's Mill from when you studied California History in 4th Grade. If it's been too long, or if you aren't from California, here's a quick recap: In 1848, John Sutter opened up a water-powered sawmill to create lumber for his carpentry business. And then James Marshall, one of Sutter's employees, found large amounts of gold in the nearby river. This kicked off the California Gold Rush, where numerous people came from all over just to try and get as much gold as they can. NFL fans may know of a team called "the 49ers". This team is named after the year 1849, when the Gold Rush was in full swing. One thing that was interesting about visiting Sutter's Mill again after all this time is that... it's changed a lot. In the past twenty years, we have become a lot more aware of other cultures. When I first visited Sutter's Mill twenty years ago, the exhibit was mostly all about how the prospectors lived during the Gold Rush. Now, though, they talk about how it impacted other cultures, such as the Native Americans living in the area. I don't know if that was always there, and I just didn't remember it, or if I was an ignorant little kid back then and just didn't care about other cultures, or if this is all-new due to how much more culturally aware we have since become.
After that, we drove up to Nevada City to spend a couple days with mainstreet's uncle and aunt who live there. They have a toddler (2.5 years old, female) and she was just so cute. I quite enjoyed her little adorable antics. 2.5 years old is, like, the ideal age for SOMEONE ELSE'S kid to be. They get to run around and do funny and adorable things and it's just so fun to watch them, and meanwhile, you don't have to deal with the hassle of raising them because it isn't your kid.
We then decided to circumnavigate Lake Tahoe, which included briefly dipping into and out of Nevada. We originally wanted to stop somewhere along that lake and have a bit of a beach day, but sadly, we could not find any parking, so we opted to skip it.
Our next stop was the Lava Beds National Monument. They have several caves for you to explore, so we rented some flashlights and went into the easiest cave. We made it through the cave without any incident, but we could not make it back OUT without an incident. For those of you who don't know, mainstreet is pretty tall. He's 6'4" (or 193 cm), so he ended up hitting his head on some rock in a "low ceiling" area. He was bleeding a fair bit and needed some minor medical care. The park ranger bandaged him up and then we went on our way.
At this point, mainstreet learns that two online friends of his from DarkMyst network, Iethloc and firtree, are in Oregon and he can swing by and visit them, though it is a bit our of our way to do so. Especially since neither one is in Southern Oregon. Iethloc is in Eugene (Central Oregon) and firtree is in Portland (Northern Oregon). While the former is mildly doable, the latter is way too far out of our way and essentially adds an entire state onto our trip. We decided to visit Iethloc and just invite firtree to come down and join us, but she is busy and cannot do so.
By the way, we stayed in Klamath Falls, Oregon that night, specifically at the Cimarron Inn and Suites. And I have to throw out a MASSIVE recommendation for "Nine Wolf Games" to anyone who lives anywhere near this area. It was in the same parking lot as our hotel, and it is a treasure to behold. It was Friday, so mainstreet was playing D&D online in our room. That left me with nothing to do, so I checked it out. I was hoping it was a store for tabletop gaming, since I am really into Magic the Gathering. I figured I could maybe get a few games in. But that's not what it was. It was a video game store. So is it like an arcade, or an off-brand GameStop, or what? Well... here's the thing. It *is* an off-brand GameStop... but it's also far more than that. They have a HUGE selection of video games, ranging from retro to modern, and from PC to console. The selection here is far more than you'd get at a GameStop, and to make it even better... any game in the store, you can play it in the store without having to buy it! They have a *massive* area set up just for you to play their video games. And to play games here only costs $5 per hour, or $10 for an entire day. Very cheap and affordable.
Then we made our way to Eugene, and spent the day with Iethloc. She and mainstreet spent a lot of time talking about Dungeons & Dragons. I also spent some time chatting with her, to the point where mainstreet and Iethloc both agreed that the two of us were either really bad for each other, or absolutely perfect for each other. I choose to believe the latter. We also played a lot of card games, primarily Love Letter. You know, the best game ever. (Fight me on this.)
It was nice to get some R&R in, but we needed to get going, so we head back south. There are two museums that we wanted to visit, but unfortunately, both of them are closed on Mondays. And this is a Monday. So we decided to just get a room in Oakland and then push the entire trip back a day. We have some time to kill, so we decide to go to another baseball game! The Athletics, unfortunately, are not home today. But the Giants are. And as luck would have it, they're playing against the Cubs, who are my second-favorite baseball team after my home team (the Angels). The Cubs were winning for pretty much the entire game, but at the last second, the Giants managed to turn it around.
And now I get to talk about the process of getting to/from the game. Anyone reading this from San Francisco: Oh my god, your public transportation system sucks.
So, San Francisco actually has two public transit systems: Bart and Muni. Why!? Why can't these just be one system? This is so horrible. But wait, it gets worse. Trying to buy tickets for these things, and then locating the stations, and getting on the right trains and such... it's awful. The UI of every computer terminal in there is horrible and not at all user-friendly. To be fair, I assume that you can get used to it, and that those who are living in San Francisco don't have to deal with as many problems as we did, but for new users, it is really bad. Get your shit together, San Francisco. Anyways, we took a shuttle from our hotel to the Bart station, and from there, boarded a Bart train to a Muni station, and then took a Muni train to the ballpark. In theory, this is simple enough to reverse. In theory. The problem is that there were so many entrances/exits to the Bart station. We didn't know which one was the *one* entrance/exit that the hotel wanted us to meet the shuttle at. And even if we did know, it was 10:30 at night, so we couldn't see much, and, being tourists, we were unfamiliar with the area. So here's what we did: we found a street corner. We told the person at the hotel to ask the shuttle driver to pick us up there, naming the streets we were at. We figured that it wouldn't be a problem for them to tell the shuttle driver to drive just an extra block. This was a no-go. Now, to be fair, I do understand why a hotel can't just choose to pick up a person at any location they want. But they weren't a busy hotel and could easily use Google Maps to guide us to where we were supposed to go. They did no such thing. So we were without a way to get back to the hotel and had to walk back... in the dark... on unsafe streets... for THIRTY MINUTES. And this was after the hotel had promised us a shuttle service. If we had known that they wouldn't have been able to provide it, we probably wouldn't have gone to the ballgame. Mainstreet and I were very pissed off. The person behind the desk tried to blame it on us, for not going to that drop-off point... but, well... like I said... how do we magically know where we're supposed to go, in the dark, in a city that we're unfamiliar with? I'm sorry, but... no. The next morning, we spoke with the hotel manager and he did help us out by giving us 30% off on our room. Unfortunately, the hotel in question was a bit pricey compared to the other places we were staying at, so that 30% off just knocked it down to "average". But this is still acceptable.
After that, we went to the Pinball Museum in Alameda. This. Was. Awesome. Anyone who lives anywhere near here: you HAVE to check this place out. It was easily the best part of our trip. They have about 100 pinball machines here, and you can play them all for free. Well, okay, there is a $10 entry fee, but once you've paid, you can play as much as you want without having to put any quarters in or anything. And they stamp your hand so that you can freely come and go throughout the day, allowing you to take breaks for meals and the like. On that note, there was a pizza joint right next door. Perfect! Also, the pinball machines are set up in order from oldest to newest, so if you go down the line, you can experience the history of pinball game design. Loads of fun. I swear, if I lived in Alameda, I would spend multiple days here.
After that, we made a quick detour into San Francisco proper. Mainstreet had originally wanted to avoid it, but I have a cousin who lives in San Francisco, and just 11 days prior, she had a baby. I wanted to meet my new first cousin once removed. Although mainstreet wanted to avoid it, he did make a detour all the way to Eugene to meet Iethloc, so he was kinda in no position to refuse me here.
So um... you know how much I talked about how I hated San Francisco public transit? Well guess what? Driving in San Francisco is EVEN WORSE. Seriously, how do people manage to live here!? The roads are so damn steep that it's fucking horrible to drive on. There's no parking ANYWHERE. The only way into the city is through a toll bridge that has over a dozen lanes on one side and then condenses down to just three or four, causing HUGE traffic jams. The toll bridge itself requires you to have FasTrak or pay with cash, but if you get into a "cash" lane, then it moves ten times slower since everyone has to stop to pay the guy... just... ugh. And that's not even getting into the ABSURD number of one-way streets, non-straight roads, traffic circles, tunnels, and just all-around not-good stuff. I hated driving around in this place. It took us OVER AN HOUR to get from the pinball museum (in Alameda) to my cousin's house (in San Francisco). That's only 15 miles (24 kilometers)! That's stupid.
And so then I got to meet my baby cousin. And let me just say... it made that horrible drive all worth it. Newborn babies are the best! They're just so lovable and adorable and soft and squishy and awesome! It was also nice to catch up with my cousin and her husband, since I hadn't seen them in quite some time.
After that, we drove for a bit and then went to the Computer History Museum. It, well, talked all about the history of computers. It was really awe-inspiring to see how far we've come with computers in such a short time. Those of you who are older (Silent Generation or Baby Boomers): I want you to realize that the world has changed far more in your lifetime than it has for most people. Those of you who are younger (Millennials or Gen Z): I want you to realize that we've still got a lot more to go. There was honestly so much to see at this museum that I honestly can't put it into words. I highly recommend it. The only small detail that I disliked is that just about everything in the museum is a look-but-don't-touch thing. I think it could have used a few more hands-on things. Like, I would have loved to play around with punch cards and what-not. As it is... there was very little that I could actually do there besides just reading about computer history, which can just as easily be done on the Internet. It is nice to get everything all in one place, though, and being able to see the physical apparatuses used for computing were nice too. They capture it better than images on a screen could.
And uh... I know I said that there was very little hands-on stuff you could do here, but uh... I do want to talk about one thing in particular. As of this museum, I can now truthfully say that I have been in a self-driving car! Whoo! (The car was just stopped and you couldn't take it anywhere, but you could sit in it, so I'm counting that.)
The next thing we did was a tour of Hearst Castle. Mainstreet really enjoyed it. For those unfamiliar, Hearst Castle is a castle that was owned by William Randolph Hearst. It has numerous pieces of priceless artwork throughout it. While mainstreet greatly enjoyed this... I will admit that for me... this was kind of a dud. It was just "okay, it's a big house. Why should I care?" for me. I mentioned the Winchester House in San Jose to mainstreet after this, and mentioned how I had done a tour of that at one point several years ago, and mainstreet agreed that this sounded infinitely better than Hearst Castle, and said that he ought to check that out the next time he was up in San Jose. For those who don't know, when the major earthquake hit San Francisco in 1906, Sarah Winchester, a crazy lady, took it as a sign that her home, as it was now, was not safe and that she would have to keep building on it. So she kept building and building until the day she died. Because she was crazy, there's a lot of design decisions that make no sense. There's doors that lead nowhere. There's stairs that lead you straight into a wall. There's a glass-pane window that would look gorgeous if sunlight were to shine through it... on the northern wall. And with another building completely blocking it. It is a perplexing place to visit. Meanwhile, Hearst Castle is just, well, a castle. Not much more to it than that.
Note that the jury is still out on whether this was my first or second visit to Hearst Castle. Technically, my mom did visit it once while I was inside of her womb, so... does that count or not? Either way, this was mainstreet's first time, and he enjoyed it, and I'm happy that he was happy.
After that, we came back to my house in Anaheim. Mainstreet spent a night with me before driving back to San Diego. And that was our trip.
Oh, and as a little added bonus: as of this trip, mainstreet has now set foot inside every single county in California!
Anyways, that's all there is. If mainstreet has anything else that he wants to add, he can go ahead and reply to this thread or make a new thread of his own. As I said at the beginning, he's usually on top of this, so I'm surprised that he hasn't done so yet.
Hi everyone, GoldenSandslash here. For those not in the know, mainstreet and I took a road trip around California a couple weeks ago. Mainstreet normally writes one of these things every time he goes anywhere, but he doesn't seem to be doing that this time, so this one's on me.
So, for those who don't know, mainstreet lives in San Diego and I live in Anaheim. This means it took him a bit to come up to get me before we even started. But he made it, we did a little bit of preliminary planning, and then off we went.
The first place we stopped was Sequoia National Park, where we saw a tree named General Sherman. This is the biggest tree in the world. There are some that are taller, and some that have fatter trunks, but in terms of overall cubic volume? None beat General Sherman. It measures at 52.5 thousand cubic feet (roughly 1500 cubic meters, for those of you on the metric system). Mainstreet had already seen it before, but for me, it was my first time.
After this, we got a room in Visalia (for the rest of this post, assume we get rooms as we go along, I'm not gonna point it out each time), and then went to a Minor League Baseball game, because mainstreet is a HUGE baseball fan. I mean, so am I, but to a far lesser extent. We saw Storm vs Rawhide, and Storm ended up winning that game.
The next place we went was Sutter's Mill. For mainstreet, it was his first time there. For me, it was my second, but the first was twenty years ago and I barely remember it. Those of you who live in California may know Sutter's Mill from when you studied California History in 4th Grade. If it's been too long, or if you aren't from California, here's a quick recap: In 1848, John Sutter opened up a water-powered sawmill to create lumber for his carpentry business. And then James Marshall, one of Sutter's employees, found large amounts of gold in the nearby river. This kicked off the California Gold Rush, where numerous people came from all over just to try and get as much gold as they can. NFL fans may know of a team called "the 49ers". This team is named after the year 1849, when the Gold Rush was in full swing. One thing that was interesting about visiting Sutter's Mill again after all this time is that... it's changed a lot. In the past twenty years, we have become a lot more aware of other cultures. When I first visited Sutter's Mill twenty years ago, the exhibit was mostly all about how the prospectors lived during the Gold Rush. Now, though, they talk about how it impacted other cultures, such as the Native Americans living in the area. I don't know if that was always there, and I just didn't remember it, or if I was an ignorant little kid back then and just didn't care about other cultures, or if this is all-new due to how much more culturally aware we have since become.
After that, we drove up to Nevada City to spend a couple days with mainstreet's uncle and aunt who live there. They have a toddler (2.5 years old, female) and she was just so cute. I quite enjoyed her little adorable antics. 2.5 years old is, like, the ideal age for SOMEONE ELSE'S kid to be. They get to run around and do funny and adorable things and it's just so fun to watch them, and meanwhile, you don't have to deal with the hassle of raising them because it isn't your kid.
We then decided to circumnavigate Lake Tahoe, which included briefly dipping into and out of Nevada. We originally wanted to stop somewhere along that lake and have a bit of a beach day, but sadly, we could not find any parking, so we opted to skip it.
Our next stop was the Lava Beds National Monument. They have several caves for you to explore, so we rented some flashlights and went into the easiest cave. We made it through the cave without any incident, but we could not make it back OUT without an incident. For those of you who don't know, mainstreet is pretty tall. He's 6'4" (or 193 cm), so he ended up hitting his head on some rock in a "low ceiling" area. He was bleeding a fair bit and needed some minor medical care. The park ranger bandaged him up and then we went on our way.
At this point, mainstreet learns that two online friends of his from DarkMyst network, Iethloc and firtree, are in Oregon and he can swing by and visit them, though it is a bit our of our way to do so. Especially since neither one is in Southern Oregon. Iethloc is in Eugene (Central Oregon) and firtree is in Portland (Northern Oregon). While the former is mildly doable, the latter is way too far out of our way and essentially adds an entire state onto our trip. We decided to visit Iethloc and just invite firtree to come down and join us, but she is busy and cannot do so.
By the way, we stayed in Klamath Falls, Oregon that night, specifically at the Cimarron Inn and Suites. And I have to throw out a MASSIVE recommendation for "Nine Wolf Games" to anyone who lives anywhere near this area. It was in the same parking lot as our hotel, and it is a treasure to behold. It was Friday, so mainstreet was playing D&D online in our room. That left me with nothing to do, so I checked it out. I was hoping it was a store for tabletop gaming, since I am really into Magic the Gathering. I figured I could maybe get a few games in. But that's not what it was. It was a video game store. So is it like an arcade, or an off-brand GameStop, or what? Well... here's the thing. It *is* an off-brand GameStop... but it's also far more than that. They have a HUGE selection of video games, ranging from retro to modern, and from PC to console. The selection here is far more than you'd get at a GameStop, and to make it even better... any game in the store, you can play it in the store without having to buy it! They have a *massive* area set up just for you to play their video games. And to play games here only costs $5 per hour, or $10 for an entire day. Very cheap and affordable.
Then we made our way to Eugene, and spent the day with Iethloc. She and mainstreet spent a lot of time talking about Dungeons & Dragons. I also spent some time chatting with her, to the point where mainstreet and Iethloc both agreed that the two of us were either really bad for each other, or absolutely perfect for each other. I choose to believe the latter. We also played a lot of card games, primarily Love Letter. You know, the best game ever. (Fight me on this.)
It was nice to get some R&R in, but we needed to get going, so we head back south. There are two museums that we wanted to visit, but unfortunately, both of them are closed on Mondays. And this is a Monday. So we decided to just get a room in Oakland and then push the entire trip back a day. We have some time to kill, so we decide to go to another baseball game! The Athletics, unfortunately, are not home today. But the Giants are. And as luck would have it, they're playing against the Cubs, who are my second-favorite baseball team after my home team (the Angels). The Cubs were winning for pretty much the entire game, but at the last second, the Giants managed to turn it around.
And now I get to talk about the process of getting to/from the game. Anyone reading this from San Francisco: Oh my god, your public transportation system sucks.
So, San Francisco actually has two public transit systems: Bart and Muni. Why!? Why can't these just be one system? This is so horrible. But wait, it gets worse. Trying to buy tickets for these things, and then locating the stations, and getting on the right trains and such... it's awful. The UI of every computer terminal in there is horrible and not at all user-friendly. To be fair, I assume that you can get used to it, and that those who are living in San Francisco don't have to deal with as many problems as we did, but for new users, it is really bad. Get your shit together, San Francisco. Anyways, we took a shuttle from our hotel to the Bart station, and from there, boarded a Bart train to a Muni station, and then took a Muni train to the ballpark. In theory, this is simple enough to reverse. In theory. The problem is that there were so many entrances/exits to the Bart station. We didn't know which one was the *one* entrance/exit that the hotel wanted us to meet the shuttle at. And even if we did know, it was 10:30 at night, so we couldn't see much, and, being tourists, we were unfamiliar with the area. So here's what we did: we found a street corner. We told the person at the hotel to ask the shuttle driver to pick us up there, naming the streets we were at. We figured that it wouldn't be a problem for them to tell the shuttle driver to drive just an extra block. This was a no-go. Now, to be fair, I do understand why a hotel can't just choose to pick up a person at any location they want. But they weren't a busy hotel and could easily use Google Maps to guide us to where we were supposed to go. They did no such thing. So we were without a way to get back to the hotel and had to walk back... in the dark... on unsafe streets... for THIRTY MINUTES. And this was after the hotel had promised us a shuttle service. If we had known that they wouldn't have been able to provide it, we probably wouldn't have gone to the ballgame. Mainstreet and I were very pissed off. The person behind the desk tried to blame it on us, for not going to that drop-off point... but, well... like I said... how do we magically know where we're supposed to go, in the dark, in a city that we're unfamiliar with? I'm sorry, but... no. The next morning, we spoke with the hotel manager and he did help us out by giving us 30% off on our room. Unfortunately, the hotel in question was a bit pricey compared to the other places we were staying at, so that 30% off just knocked it down to "average". But this is still acceptable.
After that, we went to the Pinball Museum in Alameda. This. Was. Awesome. Anyone who lives anywhere near here: you HAVE to check this place out. It was easily the best part of our trip. They have about 100 pinball machines here, and you can play them all for free. Well, okay, there is a $10 entry fee, but once you've paid, you can play as much as you want without having to put any quarters in or anything. And they stamp your hand so that you can freely come and go throughout the day, allowing you to take breaks for meals and the like. On that note, there was a pizza joint right next door. Perfect! Also, the pinball machines are set up in order from oldest to newest, so if you go down the line, you can experience the history of pinball game design. Loads of fun. I swear, if I lived in Alameda, I would spend multiple days here.
After that, we made a quick detour into San Francisco proper. Mainstreet had originally wanted to avoid it, but I have a cousin who lives in San Francisco, and just 11 days prior, she had a baby. I wanted to meet my new first cousin once removed. Although mainstreet wanted to avoid it, he did make a detour all the way to Eugene to meet Iethloc, so he was kinda in no position to refuse me here.
So um... you know how much I talked about how I hated San Francisco public transit? Well guess what? Driving in San Francisco is EVEN WORSE. Seriously, how do people manage to live here!? The roads are so damn steep that it's fucking horrible to drive on. There's no parking ANYWHERE. The only way into the city is through a toll bridge that has over a dozen lanes on one side and then condenses down to just three or four, causing HUGE traffic jams. The toll bridge itself requires you to have FasTrak or pay with cash, but if you get into a "cash" lane, then it moves ten times slower since everyone has to stop to pay the guy... just... ugh. And that's not even getting into the ABSURD number of one-way streets, non-straight roads, traffic circles, tunnels, and just all-around not-good stuff. I hated driving around in this place. It took us OVER AN HOUR to get from the pinball museum (in Alameda) to my cousin's house (in San Francisco). That's only 15 miles (24 kilometers)! That's stupid.
And so then I got to meet my baby cousin. And let me just say... it made that horrible drive all worth it. Newborn babies are the best! They're just so lovable and adorable and soft and squishy and awesome! It was also nice to catch up with my cousin and her husband, since I hadn't seen them in quite some time.
After that, we drove for a bit and then went to the Computer History Museum. It, well, talked all about the history of computers. It was really awe-inspiring to see how far we've come with computers in such a short time. Those of you who are older (Silent Generation or Baby Boomers): I want you to realize that the world has changed far more in your lifetime than it has for most people. Those of you who are younger (Millennials or Gen Z): I want you to realize that we've still got a lot more to go. There was honestly so much to see at this museum that I honestly can't put it into words. I highly recommend it. The only small detail that I disliked is that just about everything in the museum is a look-but-don't-touch thing. I think it could have used a few more hands-on things. Like, I would have loved to play around with punch cards and what-not. As it is... there was very little that I could actually do there besides just reading about computer history, which can just as easily be done on the Internet. It is nice to get everything all in one place, though, and being able to see the physical apparatuses used for computing were nice too. They capture it better than images on a screen could.
And uh... I know I said that there was very little hands-on stuff you could do here, but uh... I do want to talk about one thing in particular. As of this museum, I can now truthfully say that I have been in a self-driving car! Whoo! (The car was just stopped and you couldn't take it anywhere, but you could sit in it, so I'm counting that.)
The next thing we did was a tour of Hearst Castle. Mainstreet really enjoyed it. For those unfamiliar, Hearst Castle is a castle that was owned by William Randolph Hearst. It has numerous pieces of priceless artwork throughout it. While mainstreet greatly enjoyed this... I will admit that for me... this was kind of a dud. It was just "okay, it's a big house. Why should I care?" for me. I mentioned the Winchester House in San Jose to mainstreet after this, and mentioned how I had done a tour of that at one point several years ago, and mainstreet agreed that this sounded infinitely better than Hearst Castle, and said that he ought to check that out the next time he was up in San Jose. For those who don't know, when the major earthquake hit San Francisco in 1906, Sarah Winchester, a crazy lady, took it as a sign that her home, as it was now, was not safe and that she would have to keep building on it. So she kept building and building until the day she died. Because she was crazy, there's a lot of design decisions that make no sense. There's doors that lead nowhere. There's stairs that lead you straight into a wall. There's a glass-pane window that would look gorgeous if sunlight were to shine through it... on the northern wall. And with another building completely blocking it. It is a perplexing place to visit. Meanwhile, Hearst Castle is just, well, a castle. Not much more to it than that.
Note that the jury is still out on whether this was my first or second visit to Hearst Castle. Technically, my mom did visit it once while I was inside of her womb, so... does that count or not? Either way, this was mainstreet's first time, and he enjoyed it, and I'm happy that he was happy.
After that, we came back to my house in Anaheim. Mainstreet spent a night with me before driving back to San Diego. And that was our trip.
Oh, and as a little added bonus: as of this trip, mainstreet has now set foot inside every single county in California!
Anyways, that's all there is. If mainstreet has anything else that he wants to add, he can go ahead and reply to this thread or make a new thread of his own. As I said at the beginning, he's usually on top of this, so I'm surprised that he hasn't done so yet.
