It was a quick visit, but it was enjoyable. Glad I was able to see it.

I was meaning to try Jyorei, not sure if I believe in it, but was curious:

similar to what was in SF, unsurprisingly

I always enjoy the garden decors they have each year:

Fun animal interactions:

Multiple shows/performances:

I always, ikebana:

plus other displays:

Plus activities:

Fun times as always.

I definitely watch those birds carefully

and fed them carefully too

the Emus are so much nicer and gentle :)

Compare Emus that I could hand feed, vs Ostrige that I kept my distance from:

Definitely a fun stop if you are in the area, especially for those who haven't been to Australia and see Emus before, it's pretty rare to be able to see them in the US.

Signing up for tours is tricky, the website was entirely broken and the phone lines didn't work either. It's also unclear how much time you need between tours, because the main issue is that they force you to take the bus up and down for each and every tour, which wastes 40mn and gets very annoying when you do 3 or 4 tours. By the I remembered having done 3 tours last time, and how I regretted it with all the bussing, as well as the 3rd tour being less essential (kitchen and cottages). Honestly CA parks sucks for not offering combined tours that are back to back, but they probably don't do it because of lack of bathrooms and food at the top
I booked the first 3 tours, then remembered, and cancelled the 3rd tour to have moe time left over for the rest of the day in Paso Robles. 3103*

Thankfully I got some nice shots from the air the previous day, which give a good idea of the land:

private runway that people outside the Hearst family, cannot use

castle in the sky

view of the unfinished wing that CA Parks is not allowed to finish

seen from the castle, the runway was tempting :)

Long story short, Hearst was a rich man with somewhat questionable taste who bought lots of things and tried ot make it all fit in his ever growing ranch house (only later renamed to Castle). It's interesting to see, but a bit weird at the same time too.

Took the 2nd bus up (9:20) for the grand tour and then went to the upstairs tour right afterwards at 10:10. Pictures below as a composite of both tours. If anyone has to pick, the upstairs tour is better than the main tour in my opinion:

actual sphinx from egypt

Time to get in:

OMG, ketchup and terrible mustard

Upstairs has nice rooms of all types:

Nice views outside:

The last bit is of course the indoor swimming pool that is beautiful:

After being done with the Casle, just up the road a bit, there is Elephant Seal Vista Point, missed it last times but not this time:

Nice little half day trip from Paso Robles that gave enough time left to see other things in Paso Robles

found a little friend :)

I wouldn't say it's worth driving to all the way from the bay area, but if you are in the area, definitely worth a visit, even if it's expensive (close to $50).

The flight down the coast was scenic as always

ATVs waiting for customers :)

Oceano is a small runway, but not an issue for a 182:

After signing up paperwork and getting a ride to were the ATVs are parked, it was time to have fun again

I took the briefing seriously and made sure not to flip by going sideways up or down. I did ok overall:

the dunes can be challenging, definitely easy to get hurt if you're doing it wrong

and sure enough, someone did

didn't look good, many vehicles went there and were still there 30mn later :(

so long Oceano

trees were perfectly in bloom

I still know how to make a crane :)

Very good display of flower arrangements:

had a bit of time left to see the rest:

Good time, happy to have seen it.

France still isn't too PG yet, nicely done :)

even a representation of mycelium, nice...

I was happy when I guessed tardigrade

fruit flies...

Cheese mites (they also had dust mites)

bacteria

CV19, even

and the worst STI, a baby :)

This was lovely light expo, super well done....

Like last times, he had lots of fun slides, it was a great evening (a bit over 2H):

his last book, that I should get

He then talked about a lot of movies, which was the point of course :)

the odds of asteroids hitting major monuments, is of course just about 0

oh no, contact messed up the Drake equation

doh

cute to have a lit runway to allow a floating spaceship to land

lots of fun can be had arguing on twitter

nature making fractals is of coure hella cool

we have plenty of space debris

space movies don't show how hair really works in 0g

The martian got the award of best science movie

Very good point about the 2nd law of thermodynamics, humans don't create more energy than the energy to feed them

and the sad truth that war of the world removed evolution to add god back in :(

oh, and this was the coolest part of back to the future I never even noticed (you need to see the talk)

And we ended with the starry sky controversy in Titanic:

It was another very fun night, very quick video summary: