Hotel Pacific Monterey

... caught up on sleep after San Fran. Up at 9am and headed towards Fisherman's Wharf and looked in lots of gift shops. Rich got tempted by clam chowder so we had lunch on the pier, sitting next to lots of huge pelicans outside the window! Very scary. Then drove down Cannery Row, named after a John Steinbeck novel! Went in a shop that sold things that ...

... and I could crawl in a decent amount. "Shelves" made of roots were inside, that's where I'd keep my food. The roots almost made a chair as well...and thats a living room if I'd ever seen one.<br><br>Christa and I made some balancing rocks before our trek back down the mountain began. I had lots of trouble getting back down, switching between sliding out of my wet flips to going barefoot. Neither was great since sliding out was grip ...

... rundown, so instead we picked a little town just outside Santa Cruz called Capitola.<br><br>Although not quite the Big Sur that we would be travelling down later on in the week,the drive along the coast was fantastic and we stopped off a number of times at beautiful deserted beaches with rough, Pacific waves. <br><br>When we arrived at our b&amp;b, The Jewel Box, we were so pleased, it was really sweet and had a ...

... must have made the situation before. Ha, funny to run into them again. And I still felt panic as soon as I saw them.<br><br>"Day 1 in RV, no RV. Would have been journaled, except journal was in Lola." -Brits<br><br>Shew, another day in the life..<br><br>I digress to a bit more about Santa Cruz...just browsed a bit in the morning, heading down to the grimey and gross beach. It's covered with random brown beach dregs, has signs for no swimming, contaminated water, bacteria ridden...not ...

... of course, and witness this rather unusual site. Apparently elephant seals were nearly extinct a few decades ago, but there are now over 15,000 living off the Pacific Coast.<br><br>The signs announced we still had around 250 miles to go to reach LA, so I put my foot down and we sped off. We stopped once more (for an "In n Out Burger" in Santa Maria), and eventually rolled into Nottingham Avenue at 9.45pm. Wow - a LONG day, but very worthwhile.

... facilities, i.e. free, clean, unlimited-hot-water showers, we noticed during the course of the 3 nights, that many homeless people come here to have a shower. They are not your average streetbums, but mostly homeless people who live in their car (not very different from us, I guess!). After witnessing this stream of people for 3 nights and 3 mornings, I was ready to get out of there!

We went out for breakfast this morning. Finding a place to eat was a long story, so I won't bother writing about it. We ate while our clothes were being washed at the Laundromat. In the afternoon we decided to go to Pointe Lobos State Park. It turned out to be a lot better than we thought it would be. There was an old whaling station in the park near the bay. That was interesting to see ...

... and the first thing on our minds was FOOD. So we headed for the cafe and got a seat at the sit-down restaurant overlooking the bay, which put us right in view of the rock with the seals. Our meals were slow, but they were understaffed today and we were well entertained by the seals. And then... OTTERS!!! And they came close enough that with the telephoto, we got good views!! When viewed full zoom on the computer, they're actually close ...

The drive from San Francisco was some what foggy with a little bit of drizzle but it felt good to not have a heavy coat on and now at my parents house, I do not have to wear the layers I do at our house in Wisconsin. Yea! Just relaxing for the most part as my mum has ...

... har vi holdt pause i Monterey. Og imorgen går turen længere sydpå hvor vi også besøger "The Danish Capitol of USA" Solvang, det skal nok blive sjovt. Status for vores tur i Mercen. Kørt: 4547 miles ( 7317 km.) Benzinforbrug: 11,5 km/L på hele turen Tankninger: 10 gange.