An early morning stroll along Monterey seafront, a beautiful mix of yatchs and nature with seals, cormorants, and pelicans a plenty. We even spotted stingrays in the water, and a great blue heron.
A little further, and we hit cannery row, with a history of canning sardines in its heyday.
At the far end, the renowned aquarium. It seems everyone, even Brian the SF taxi driver, thinking we had not heard if it, has told us to visit, and having discovered Kerry’s close family connection, somewhat tempted, however, there are so many calls on our time.
Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, a lovely, well kept and well signed nature reserve. Plenty of pelicans, herons, guillemots, egrets, and of course seals and sea lions. They even have a free loan of binoculars, you just leave your car keys as an exchange. Great idea!
A drive through Carmel, a cute town with pretty houses, each one different to the next.
Then on to 17 mile drive, a scenic driving tour of Pebble Beach. $12.50 per car for the privilege, with various pull outs. Popular with coach tours. Pretty, but didn’t live up to the expectations. A little hazy from sea fog, made it a little chilly, for which Mark cracking out the shorts got the blame. It did look more impressive when the sun broke through. The great big houses and various golf courses with the sea as a backdrop was more impressive than the view points.
Time to head east, tonight we are staying at Midpines, our base for Yosemite.
The view of the rolling Californian hills heading out is amazing, just as you would expect them to look, like the wine bottles say they should look like. Possibly looking a little fake?
A little stop at the San Luis reservoir, an amazing blue, and with the hills now a lovely shade of yellow, we have hit it with a little added magic from sundown’s special lighting. It’s absolutely beautiful, though again so perfect it suggests fake.
Having passed the reservoir, we suddenly fall off the hills to totally flat land.
Another hour or so, and we are here, green cabin, mid pines. A huge cabin with two doubles, a twin and sofa beds. The sign, however, showed a maximum of 4. It’s very quiet though, no light, no people, just odd animal sounds…….. we are working out our characters in a scream movie!
Heather and Mark's travel blog 