During our stay in Carmel, we took in the 17 mile drive. It's full of beautiful coastline. Although at this point in our trip we had turned into "coastline snobs" and weren't as easily impressed as before we drove the Big Sur coast (from San Simeon to Carmel). We stopped off at different points on the drive (they give you a map of some points of interest when you enter the gates and pay $9.50/car to do the drive. One of our stops was at The Lone Cypress Tree (second picture above) which is a rather famous stop along the drive. And we also stopped at Pebble Beach and spend a large chunk of our time there. We had lunch overlooking the 18th green and were able to walk down to the green and take pictures by it (third picture above)
After the 17 Mile Drive we headed 15 minutes north to the town of Monterey. I (being the big fish geek that I am) had an amazing time at the Monterey Bay aquarium. The aquarium is so dynamic and is so well executed that even Ross (who occasionally forgets that there is even a fish tank in our home) really enjoyed the aquarium as well. There are a lot of "touch areas" and we got to pet sting rays, different sea stars, sea cucumbers, and a variety of sea urchin that isn't too pokey. I've been to some really nice aquariums before, but the only other one that I know of in the US that is in the same league as the Monterey Bay Aquarium is the Boston Aquarium. After the aquarium, we walked around Cannery Row in Monterey. Cannery Row use to be a slummy part of town as it was once upon a time a ruff-n-tuff, blue collar sardine cannery area. It was made famous by the author John Steinbeck in his book "Cannery Row" (1945). The canneries all closed after the collapse of the sardine fishing industry in the 1950s. Now the area is a tourist attraction and is home to many shops, restaurants, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
The next morning we traded our convertible in for a Dodge Challenger! Whoop whoop! I could finally put a comb through my hair and let the sunburn on the top of my ears begin the heal! We headed north again towards San Francisco. Along the way we stopped at Aptos CA. I have this weird fettish for abandoned buildings and defunct oddities such as old abandoned amusement parks and sunken (or even better: HALF sunken) ships. Inside the world of my defunct oddities fetish, I hold a special interest in anything having to do with the water, such as ships, buoys, pools, piers etc. One time when I was in Detroit, I went to Belle Isle and saw the defunct Belle Isle Aquarium...I almost peed myself. But that's another story. ANYWAYS for a couple of years now I've been cruising the Internet scoping out this creepy, old, defunct concrete ship called the SS Palo Alto. The SS Palo Alto was built during World War I in 1918 for 1.5 million dollars as an oil tanker ship, but never made it to war because the war ended by the time it left the shipyard. It just floated with no purpose for 6 years before an oil company bought it for oil storage in 1924. Then in 1929 an amusement park company purchased the ship from the oil company. Unfortunately the Great Depression started just after the amusement park company purchased the ship. Even though the economy was poor, the amusement park company moved forward with the project and towed the SS Palo Alto to Seacliff State Beach in Aptos CA. The amusement park company sunk the ship so that it sat partially in the water. Then they built a pier out to the ship and remodeled it as A HALF SUNKEN AMUSEMENT SHIP WITH A POOL ON BOARD...I get excited even just typing all those words together. The ship also had a dance hall, an arcade, and a restaurant on board. But then in 1932, a bad winter storm cracked the ship's hull and the amusement park company abandoned the ship. Later on in 1936, the State of California purchased the ship for ONE DOLLAR. It's now home to a lot of birds and marine life.
Our next stop was the Santa Cruz Boardwalk to see the Loof Carousel. This carousel is over 100 years old and is one of only a few carousels left in the world with a working "ring dispenser". See that long skinny thing sticking out of the right side of the picture? A person sitting on one of the outside seats is suppose to grab a ring from the dispenser as they spin around the carousel and try to toss it into the (incredibly creepy and with large glowing eyes) clown's mouth located on the back wall. Unfortunately the boardwalk was operating on "winter hours" and was closed while I was there (that's what the lady wearing shorts and a tank top told me), so I had to take this picture through the glass window looking into the ride. Then it was on to San Fran! First stop: Alcatraz. Aside from feeling like one of the cows of the cattle heard getting to and from the island, I really enjoyed this old prison. I took the 45 minute audio tour and learned a lot about it while I was there. The last picture above is of the cell where one of the two men escaped from the prison by making dummy heads and existing though holes they had made in the prison walls using spoons. As the young kids (and pathetic adults) say in California: That's just craz. We finished off the night at "Off the Grid", where every Friday, a bunch of absolutely amazingly delish food trucks serve their latest daring inventions. They also served locally crafted beer here, which led to Ross and I's only (tiny) argument during our trip: Who was going to drive the car to the hotel after this? I lost.
On the last day of our trip, we spent the morning just north of San Francisco at Muir Woods. This State Park was different from all the other ones we had been to prior on this trip because it was densely wooded. The trees were tall and columns of misty sunlight peeked through. We didn't see the ocean here, but instead walked deep in the woods while there was a light rain and breathed in the cool damp air that smelt of Bay Laurel trees and Redwoods. It was quiet and we listened to the sound of the creek we were following and the drops of rain as they gently fell around us. It was kind of magical there. We had an amazing lunch in Sausalito CA before crossing back over the bridge. And then it stopped raining and the sun came out for our walk across the bridge! We caught a ride on the trolly and saw a theater performance that night called Beach Blanket Babylon. After the show we had some Chinese food in China Town on the way back to our hotel. San Fran has the largest China Town outside of China. It was busy, crowded, colorful, and fun to see. The next morning we flew home. On the airplane, we both decided that our next trip to the coast would be from San Fran to Portland. I can't wait!
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