{"id":933,"date":"2018-12-29T10:57:11","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T18:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hovorka.org\/?page_id=933"},"modified":"2019-01-04T19:03:37","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T03:03:37","slug":"monterey-2000","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hovorka.org\/index.php\/trips\/monterey-2000\/","title":{"rendered":"Monterey 2000"},"content":{"rendered":"
Day 1 - Thu, Mar 16, 2000\r\nLast updated: 8\/2\/00 7:30pm CT<\/pre>\n
In March ’00, we went to Monterey California. I went for a software developer’s conference in San Jose, so we flew out a couple of days early to explore Monterey. We also stopped at Big Basin Redwoods State Park.<\/p>\n
We flew from O’Hare to San Jose, rented this dumpy little car, and drove (about 1.5 to 2 hours) to Monterey.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
We stayed at the Best Western Victorian Inn, about a block from Cannery Row. It was nice, clean and located near things we wanted to see (but watch out, weekend rates are double the weekday rates). It was about 2 blocks from the bay. It had a fireplace and a good (free) continental breakfast with fresh fruits and breads. The rooms weren’t the quietest, but not bad. Hearing the sea gulls in the morning was kinda cool.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
We spent most of the first afternoon walking around Cannery Row and the Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s a tourist area with many shops and restaurants. The dolphin statue was in front of the Monterey Bay Inn ($$$$). We did not stay there.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
The pier behind Denise is where we got some great otter entertainment on day 3.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Dinner was at Domenico’s on the wharf. Over priced, and not that great. I ordered the paella, but it was nothing like the wonderful paella down in New Orleans (Jacmel Inn, Hammond, LA).\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
We attempted to catch the sunset over the Pacific at Carmel Beach, but it was cloudy. Better luck tomorrow.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Day 2 - Fri, Mar 17, 2000\r\nLast updated: 8\/1\/00 9:00pm CT<\/pre>\n
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Day 2 began with an early drive up the bay along the coastal road.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Here’s a view from Point Joe. Not much different. As with most of these pictures, you had to be there to appreciate the real beauty of it all.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Next up is Bird Rock. Guess why they call it Bird Rock?\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Cypress Point is a place where this lone cypress tree managed to take root and survive the rough weather along the ocean. It is fenced off. It can survive the weather, but not the humans.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Driving along “17 mile drive”, a very scenic route with tall cypress trees and really fancy houses. We drove past Pebble Beach golf course and thought that $2.10 for a gallon of gas was expensive. At the time, it was still $1.25 in Chicago.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Then it was off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They have this huge tank filled with the obvious things.\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
And of course, sea otters (in a separate tank – they probably don’t want to mix the otters with the sharks). This was a very nice aquarium and a must see if you are in the area.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Lunch was at Sly McFly’s, a bar and grill on Cannery Row. Again, major tourist destination, so don’t expect to get away cheap. The food was good, but a Pepsi cost $2.35!<\/p>\n
The afternoon was spent on rented bikes, riding up the coast, covering the area nearer to the hotel that we skipped on the morning drive. One of our stops was at the Point Pinos Lighthouse. I of course don’t remember any interesting facts about the lighthouse, so I gathered a couple of facts off the ‘net. Point Pinos is the oldest, continuously operating lighthouse on the west coast of the U.S. The lighthouse was opened in 1855.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Not exactly sure where the picture of me was taken, but since I put a picture of Denise on the site, I had to be fair…\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Dinner was great. We ate at The Fishwife in Pacific Grove. Get there early or make a reservation, it’s a relatively small place. We got there at 5:00 and got seated right away without a reservation. By 5:30 there was a wait for a table. Good food and good prices.<\/p>\n
Finally, we drove down to Carmel Beach to watch a beautiful sunset over the Pacific ocean. You had to be there. It is apparently quite the event, there were a lot of people that showed up the two days we went to watch the sun go down.\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
After the sky show, we headed back to the hotel, dropped off the car and took a walk down for a little ice cream snack at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Shop & Soda Fountain on Cannery Row. Hot fudge, YUM!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Day 3 - Sat, Mar 18, 2000\r\nLast updated: 11\/5\/00 5:30pm CT<\/pre>\n
We were disappointed that we hadn’t seen any sea otters up close (outside of the aquarium). We wanted to see an otter “in the wild”. We gave it one last try on Coast Guard Wharf in the early morning. Sure enough, we got lucky, one little guy was feasting and putting on a show.\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Here the otter has brought up a crab and is munching on one of the crab’s legs. If you look close, on the otter’s stomach you’ll see the crab trying to get away. He did not.\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
One last otter shot. The otter came up with a clam and a rock, put the rock on it’s stomach and started banging the clam on the rock to crack it open.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Off to see Big Basin Redwoods State Park. After a stop in Santa Cruz for lunch at the Jack in the Box, we drove down a fairly narrow and very winding road to reach the park. The pictures don’t do it justice. These trees were HUGE! We went on a 3-4 hour hike on Sequoia Trail which is about 4 miles long. We were never more than a mile away from a road, but at times it seemed like we were the only two people on the planet. Standing in the middle of all these really huge, and really old, trees helps put life into some perspective.\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
The ride out of the park was on even more narrow and winding roads. I managed to get us somewhat lost. I say somewhat because there were really only two roads out, and they both lead to civilization. However, I managed to take the longer of the two routes. I have never seen such steep drop offs from the side of such narrow roads! We were too busy holding on for dear life to take any pictures. Sorry.<\/p>\n
The next stop was San Jose and the Fairmont Hotel. We dropped off the dumpy little car at the airport and took the light rail down to the hotel. Drops you right off at the door. The Fairmont is a very posh hotel. Thanks to Mercantec for picking up the tab. Unfortunately, the Fairmont no longer has the ice cream bar they had when we stayed there in ’95. (Thanks to Frame Technology for picking up the tab in ’95). They turned the bar into another restaurant, which still serves up some fine ice cream, just not the variety they use to have (again, thanks to Mercantec for picking up the tab for the late night snack). In ’95, this room was a full blown ice cream parlor. You could order anything you wanted. Before the late night ice cream snack, diner was at Casa Catillo, across the street from the Fairmont. Very good Mexican food and good prices.<\/p>\n
Denise flew home the next day, but I remained for the Software Developer’s Conference. You wouldn’t want to see pictures, even if I took any.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Northern California\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Day 1 – Thu, Mar 16, 2000 Last updated: 8\/2\/00 7:30pm CT In March ’00, we went to Monterey California. I went for a software developer’s conference in San Jose, so we flew out a couple of days early to explore Monterey. We also stopped at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. We flew from O’Hare … Continue reading “Monterey 2000”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":499,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-933","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hovorka.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hovorka.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hovorka.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hovorka.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hovorka.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hovorka.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/933\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hovorka.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hovorka.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}