Today we woke fairly early and went down to the breakfast room at the hotel to get coffee, juice and a small bite to eat. While we waited for the rush hour traffic to die down, I caught up with the blog post that I should have posted last night. I have definitely decided that it is easier to write it the night of, no matter how tired I am, than the following morning.
After posting to my blog, we headed west on the I-80 towards Fairfield and then south on I-680 to US-101 in San Jose. We ran into fairly heavy traffic along I-680 but were able to escape to the HOV lane. We were not as lucky when we were just past Gilroy (Garlic Capital of the World). There was supposedly a major accident near Echo Valley Road which caused a 5-mile backup that took us over an hour to get through. Once we made it to Echo Valley Road, however, the traffic cleared up and there was absolutely no evidence of an accident. Although I am very glad that we didn’t see any carnage, I was quite annoyed to spend that long in traffic for what seemed like no reason.
We pulled off the highway in Castroville (Artichoke Capital of the World) and happily found a restroom at the nearest gas station. Mum and I felt much better afterwards and we returned to US-101 and headed southbound again. We arrived in Carmel just after two and headed through the ridiculously narrow streets to the beach. We drove around slowly, looking for parking and just as we were about to give up, we found a perfect spot in the shade. We munched on some of our leftovers for lunch and then headed towards the sand.
Taking off our shoes, we walked barefoot down to the water and let our feet get wet – not very wet though, as the water was quite cold. I took a few pictures of the beach and surrounding area and then we headed back to the car so we could check into the hotel. We checked into the hotel, took a fifteen-minute break, and then headed back out to explore the downtown area by foot.
Our first stop was a bookstore to see if Mum could find any of the Joe Grey Mysteries that are written by Shirley Rousseau Murphy and based in the Carmel area. We were, however, unsuccessful.
We also stopped in a chocolate/ sweet shop – we were much more successful there and we both found something to munch on for later. Window shopping in Carmel is much more affordable than actual shopping and we both decided that we would find a souvenir shop elsewhere if we were going to grab anything to bring back with us. We did, however, find a nice park (Devendorf Park) with a HUGE Monterey Cypress tree in it. Carmel is a VERY dog-friendly town, however this is one of the few places that dogs are not allowed.
After our walk around Carmel, we spend some time at the hotel and then headed to dinner in Monterey. On our last trip there were no Food Network restaurants to visit, but this time, we had a few to choose from and we decided on Cannery Row Brewing Company.
We lucked out and found a parking spot that was not only right outside the restaurant, but it had over two hours left on the meter. As we got out of the car I noticed that there was a souvenir shop directly across the road. Seeing as we had plenty of time, we decided to pop in and I was able to get several affordable souvenirs for people and an awesome red hoodie with an octopus on the front of it. Because it is so late in the season, most of the souvenirs were between 50 and 75% off – definitely no complaints here. We put the souvenir bag in the car and headed to the restaurant.
We ordered their 18 oz pretzel for an appetizer. Mum also had a bowl of their clam chowder and I had their fish & chips. I was not a big fan of their fries, but the fish was excellent (and for those of you who know me, you know I’m not a big seafood person). Mum was a bit upset that the pretzel didn’t come with the stone-ground mustard which Yelp showed as coming with it, but the spicy cheese dip was spectacular. We took half of the pretzel to go and the waitress was nice enough to give us some more cheese dip.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel. Mum had a bath and I watched a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives marathon while I blogged my day. One of the shows featured a restaurant just outside of Eugene. I am hoping that we may be able to visit it on our way back north.
It is now time to go to bed – Mum is already sleeping soundly and I have said good night to Hubby. Thank you for reading and I will talk to you all tomorrow after our trip down the coast through Big Sur. We have been told that the fire is only affecting the parks along SR-1 so we should be able to get some great views of the surf as well as a picture of Bixby Creek Bridge.
L
