A million wonderful impressions of places that we visit even briefly are better than the alternative of having never been to them. This is not our first time to Monterey, and over the previous nearly ten years, this might be the fourth or fifth, maybe even the sixth or seventh time we’ve been here. So collectively, we have a ton of memories nurtured here, 100 miles south of San Francisco on the California coast.

You didn’t think we’d stop here and not dip into the Monterey Bay Aquarium, even if it was just for an hour or two, did you?

A short walk in the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Pacific Grove during the fall and the height of the migration season is also mandatory.

That’s a lighthouse and some historic buildings out on Point Sur, but its visitation hours and days are very limited. Check out the Point Sur Lighthouse website for more info.

We stayed along the ocean as long as we had available light to enjoy the views. From the coast, we headed inland for the night. The next day, we stopped in Los Angeles for breakfast at the Original Pantry Cafe with our old friend Mark Shimer before finishing our drive back to Phoenix after our epic Thanksgiving road trip.