Padre Oaks Hotel Monterey

Finally left the noisy dorm room yay. Saw some massive waves along the coast towards Monterey. Stopped off in Santa Cruz, not much going on in Fall! Apparently it's wooden rollercoaster is a national monument! Got to Monterey and found a visitor centre for a map. Hotel man upgraded us to a deluxe king, had a microwave and a fridge! Watched lots of TV ...

... there we'd find out. I'm not entirely sure it was a town so much as a point or small region. We found the Big Sur State Park and decided that it was the best option and turned on in. Although the woman at the front stand was a bit concerned for us, we knew Lola would do fine...she's seen it all. We decided to do a hike up to see some Redwoods and Pfieffer? Waterfall. Christa learned at the Grand Canyon and on that hike I learned...flip ...

04/11/2009 - Woke up in the morning, had our usual breakfast (cereal in our room out of paper bowls!), and checked out of the hotel. We picked up the car from the backstreet car park (it was still there, with all its wheels on, thank god) and headed south on Highway 1. We had initially planned to travel seventy miles or so and stay in Santa Cruz, but the reviews on tripadvisor.com said it was past its best and a ...

... in England before leaving but loved that they were popular over here. Determined that this was the year of their take-off across the pond.<br>-My Museum. NO, MY Museum being built next door, date TBA.<br>-Sprinting up hills being me. Just had to run. (Randi you know)<br>-"Burning Man's got Lola's name written all over it" -Matt, haha, yes it does.<br>-"Sounds like Katie Towers doesn't do halves."<br>-What the Brits think of America: "I want a corndog and Montell Williams is good."....WHAT?

... blue sea with white waves crashing onto the beach. The photos in this blog cannot do it justice. <br><br>We spent about an hour on the beach before the long trip back to LA beckoned, and we climbed back into the Bus at about 3pm. It took another couple of hours before we were really out of Big Sur, and as the countryside flattened out we passed a beach packed full of elephant seals basking in the late afternoon sun. We just HAD to ...

We were up bright and early this morning to join the Whale Watching Boat Tour. We went with the Princess Monterey boat, and were very pleased to find that it is a HUGE boat, the largest one running these tours, and there were not very many people on the tour, only about 40-50 people. It was great as everyone could move around and no one had to jostle for a good spot.<br><br>Heading out towards Monterey Canyon, Azrael spotted what could have been whales ...

All too soon it was time to leave, and after another visit to the drive-thru Starbucks we hit the open road headed for Monterey. And it was a long open road... we finally pulled in to the Holiday Inn around 8pm. Thanks to a little forward planning (LP calling the restaurant en-route) we had a good 20 mins to unpack the car fully, get changed and head out to dinner. <br><br>The next morning we had a quick look around ...

Departure Countdown! #14 US military preoccupation with the Middle East and dinosaur goo goes back to the Carter Doctrine of 1980: "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf Region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the USA and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." 

... 6:00 to 9:00 with outdoor BBQs, food stalls, bands & other entertainment. As this day was just before Halloween & near the presidential election, there was plenty of activity - trick or treats & political protests (not too many supporters of Senator McCain though). They had several "industrial size" BBQs along the street cooking huge steaks & ribs. Colin, you could do with one of these ! Higuera Street has an abundance ...

... the 17mile drive around the coast which had plenty stops for viewing opportunities eg ghost tree, bird rock and some overly friendly beach squirrels we also went to visit the rather cute town of Carmel by the sea, where all the houses looked like something from TV.