John Wise

Disclaimer:  Back in November 2005, when I was posting about our trip up the coast, we were severely limited regarding photos I could post on the blog due to bandwidth limitations. Here in 2022, I’m updating these posts using the original image and text, but I’m adding the rest of the photos I would have liked to share 16 years ago if bandwidth and storage had not been an issue.

This may be our day to head south for the beginning of our trek home, but you can rest assured we’ll be lingering along the way as we always seem to find time for some experiential sightseeing. Between breakfast at the Old Monterey Cafe, an old favorite, and early entry into the aquarium, which is a perk for aquarium members, we had time for a walk along Cannery Row. By the way, our lodging for the night was up at the Thunderbird Motel in Seaside just north of Monterey, as it’s significantly cheaper up that way.

Nothing really ever changes with the orange nettle jellyfish moving in every direction; maybe the only thing that really changes is how many people they have on the other side of the window looking in.

Holy mackerel, mackerel.

While it took me a while, I feel confident in saying this is a sanderling. Hopefully, by studying the difference between sanderlings, plovers (shorter beaks), and sandpipers (no eyeliner), I’ll be better equipped in the future to know what I’m looking at in the wild.

If we won the lottery…this is exactly what we’d have built into our dining room. Now, after a brief 90 minutes in the aquarium, it’s already time for us to leave. Something for readers to consider: our membership not only offered us a discount for the whale-watching tour but covered our brief entries over the previous three days. Had we purchased full-priced tickets for these days, we were only in the aquarium for between 1.5 and 2.5 hours, this would have been on the pricey side.

A quick stop in Pacific Grove to check out the wintering Monarch butterflies.

And now Caroline and I will pretend to take seriously the drive south. We have, on occasion, driven from Monterey all the way back to Arizona in a day, but today, we are opting for the slow drive down the coast with a final push home tomorrow (Sunday). Slow is an understatement to describe this day, as it took us more than 6 hours to drive the 50-odd miles from Monterey to Lucia, California, on Highway 1.

From our perspective, that’s some scary fishing going on right there. Over the years, we’d see this guy fishing from this oceanside cliff more than once. How do we know it’s the same person? How many black men standing well over 6 feet tall would gravitate towards the exact same spot year after year? There’s a cliffside oceanfront home off to his left; we guess it’s either his or his winter rental.

With a smile on her face, she jumped, she died, and that was the end. We are at the Granite Canyon Bridge about 15 miles south of Pacific Grove and just why it took nearly two hours to reach this point, I have no idea.

Okay, I have some ideas, but you don’t get to see those photos, as this post would simply be too long.

In contrast, we traveled the 5 miles to the Bixby Bridge in only 30 minutes.

Oh, this will work to slow down our pace: a walk in the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

While fish, whales, birds, and butterflies are important to our travels, so is the forest floor, especially in the fall.

When you stop and consider that we are now 33 miles down the coast and that we’ve been driving (and stopping a few times) for nearly 3 hours, you can easily understand the need to stretch the legs.

Getting fresh air into the lungs instead of being cooped up in the car for too long helps fight the fatigue of these lengthy drives.

Time flies when you’re in the trees.

After an hour in the redwoods and other trees, it was time for us to get serious because we still had about 4 hours of driving before reaching lodging at the Sandyland Reef Inn down in Carpenteria.

Not to worry, though, we know that the day’s story would be incomplete without some sunset photos if such images were available, and this afternoon we were in for a spectacular end of the day.

Pampas grass glowing in the sun never fails to enchant us.

One of our last views up the coast today.

Okay, just one more stop.

And one more selfie.

Before the real last stop because the rest of the 185 miles from here to just south of Santa Barbara would be driven in the dark.