Victorian Inn 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 ...

... had a falafel wrap), we drove down to New Brighton Beach a couple of miles outside town. Unfortunately, as the beach is part of a state park we had to pay to enter, which pleased us no end. We forgot all about the charge though as the beach was beautiful and deserted. Driftwood was scattered all over the sand and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw one of the bits of wood move. On closer inspection we ...

... LOLA" <br>click.<br><br>Gathered from post-incident madness, Christa walks back into the restaurant and turns to Ryan "Come with me NOW". I think Ryan figured out what was going on, went back to the table and said to everyone "SOMEONES STEALING ALL OUR ****"...a nanosecond later the table about flips with the speed that all the guys rose. Out the door and full sprinnnt to the hill where Lola awaits...<br><br>Meanwhile, I'm still meeting with utter panic, the guys at the bottom of the ...

... over the edge and crash to your death on the rosks hundreds of feet below". At these points I crawled along at about 20 mph, and as far as possible tried to drive on the other carriageway!<br><br>We stopped at one particular "Vista Point", but otherwise kept going until we got to the Big Sur Bakery - a log cabin by the side of the road which sold excellent coffee, cakes, cookies, and quite a bit else. It wasn't cheap, but the location ...

... to get involved in and we spent a good 4 hours there watching the seals and penguins being fed, learning about the secret life of sea horses, feeling sea anemone hugs, stroking bat rays and star fish and learning about the importance of the kelp forests that line the Californian coast. We&#8217;d almost shaken off that Misty Monterey feeling&#8230;!<br><br>Next, we take the world famous Big Sur drive down the coast towards Hearst Castle.

... br> <br><br>We stopped at a couple of photo spots along the way, and also at a beach where a colony of Elephant Seals live! They were so cool! Loads of them all just chilling on the beach. <br><br> <br><br>And the Squirrels are so tame here!!! One saw our car pull up and came running over and nearly jumped in our car when we opened the doors!!<br><br>We had had a restaurant called Nepenthe recommended to ...

... me to her mom too, and explained she just had a hip replacement which is why she had a walking stick. It went on, but you get the point. Good example though, of how darn lovely and forward people can be here. Very cool.. It wasn't much time to do more than the usual suspects, Fishermans wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge, Union Sqare, Chinatown, go to the City lights bookstore - and buy a book on beat poetry, go hang out with the leftover hippies at Haight Ashbury. Its a great ...

... the back of a woman's head. Hey, I wanted to see what she looked like in the flesh, no don't get too sordid please. Anyway, instead of just walking back to see how well she had aged, I thought of a cunning plan. This plan was so cunning it saw me pick up a ticket, walk past her and then put it in the bin. Claire thought, and in hindsight I agree that it looked blatant - but this was Laura Ingles and it wouldn't have been fair ...

... very small but cute. There are also<br>deer everywhere, we saw a bunch in the local cemetary eating up the<br>flowers!!! Carmel is a artists paradise. The town has lots of art<br>galleries and little botiques everywhere, there are some artistic<br>sculptures in the park and you can even see an artist or 2 with an<br>easel on one of the blocks calmly painting their next subject. I loved<br>this ...