We were up at before 0500. Wake up call worked just fine. We were showered, dressed and finished packing by 0530. Rosie texted Conor as he had asked us to do at this time... we were pretty sure he was still sleeping - if he got home at all from the wedding.
Went down to check out of our room. Had the hotel credit me back 1 day of parking and we were all checked out by 0600. Queued up with a lot of other travellers for the complimentary shuttle to the airport. Rosie and I plus luggage were literally the last folks the shuttle to take. We stood on the way to the first Terminal. Arrived at our Terminal, Terminal 6, by 0630.
On this day baggage check-in and security were a breeze compared to Newark and we made our way over to our gate, Gate 76. Our ride today would be a B757-200. Scheduled departure time was 0830 for the 5hr flight back to the East coast with a good tail wind. Rosie had purchased some sandwiches for us at Starbucks for the flight back. Finally boarded our flight and had wheels-in-well by 0900.
The flight was uneventful. We were seated on the left side of the jet just behind the row of folks without under seat storage right next to the mid-fuselage cabin door. Rosie napped most of the way and I got to watch 2 movies: John Carter and some silly the Rock movie, which I mostly napped through, and 1 Bones episode. Also found time to read my Dirk Pitt novel by Clive Cussler on iPad.
The temperature at Newark when we landed at 1700 was 97degrees F. Interestingly, Katie Couric and her current date had been sitting up in 1st class and deplaned ahead of us. Luggage pickup at baggage claim was uneventful and we didn't have too long a wait for Terry's Taxi by door 5 upstairs. Had a relatively quiet ride home and got dropped off by 1830. Paid for the ride by credit card and tipped the driver in cash.
Adventure OVER! What a trip with so many memorable moments. Loved every minute of it and we look forward to our next journey!
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Day 9: San Pedro and LAX
Well, we got up a bit late on this Saturday, 7/7/2012... didn't realize that the hotel's alarm clock was 20min slow!
Before we left the hotel to start our day, called down to concierge services to let them know that we wouldn't be needing maid service - our stuff is all over the place. :-)
Out the hotel by 0730 and stopped at a 'Mickey Ds' en route for a guilty breakfast. Called Conor to give him a heads up and see if he wanted anything - he did not... had already eaten. Picked him up at 0800 and continued on to the I405 south to I-110 which would take us to the San Pedro port area. The overall trip was about 15miles and we arrived at the U.S.S. Iowa's parking area around 0830. There was already a pretty long queue of folks, all pre-purchased ticket holders, waiting to get on the battleship. TV coverage was also on site and upfront. Not sure what other dignitaries would be participating in the opening day event.
Things certainly were not going very smoothly on this first day of the battleship's final role as museum piece. By 0930, a 1/2 hr after opening, very few of the pre-paids had gotten on to the ship. Many, if not all, of the general admission by the ticket today tourists had already gotten on to the ship and there was some serious grumblings going on with the long line of pre-paids! They certainly have some 'process' issues to sort out.
While we were patiently standing in line, we started up a conversation with a very nice couple behind us: Marvin & Phyllis Mackie. Turns out they were retired and lived here in San Pedro. They had strolled down to see what all the fuss was about and to tour the Iowa. They were very happy to have met us and stayed with us through out most of the directed tour of the ship. I was apparently a bevy of nautical information which was acknowledged by some of the volunteers working on the venerable battleship. :-)
We finally boarded Iowa at ~0945. From a distance the ship looks great but, as you board and get a closer look, the entire wooden deck needs serious work and there's a ton of other repairs and paint to be done over the next few years in order to truly make the experience one to remember. Until all of that work gets done, the ship will not be open to just wandering around anywhere you'd like to - like you can on the U.S.S. New Jersey, BB-62, in Camden - obviously, only those areas deemed safe enough to tour by the stewards of the ship.
Everyone boarding the ship had to follow a specified route. We obviously took a ton of photos all through the tour. There were areas such as the forward gun mounts where one could linger about for photos but, when you continued the tour you had to follow a prescribed path around the ship which was:
- Boarded amidships, starboard side,
- head aft until you reach the opening into the officer's wardroom,
- enter the wardroom and cross over to the port side of the ship,
- continue forward, port side up past and around the 2 forward gun mounts back to the starboard side. We paused to take photos by the 16" guns of turret #1. The volunteer Docent let us know that it took about 75 men/turret to operate it.
- continue back aft, starboard side, until you start being directed up several levels including through the closed navigation bridge and the armored 'panic' room, past a 5" gun turret, over past one of the port side Close In Weapon Systems (CIWS), continuing back aft to the levels holding the Tomahawk and Harpoon missile containers and then,
- finally back down a port side, aft ladder onto the main deck by the after section of gun turret #3.
- At this point you descend down to the 2nd deck where the beginnings of a museum about the ship is located. The ship's store is also here where one can buy snacks and beverages and all types of souvenirs. We made some purchases and it was in this part of the tour that we bid the Mackie's goodbye. When you have your fill of this part of the ship,
- exit back up a ladder that puts up out on the port side aft of the ship, forward of the gun turret.
- one can wander most of the aft deck of the ship, onto the helicopter pad and, get pretty cools views looking forward.
- from there as you head forward on the starboard side, you can take photos by a 16" round laying on the ground with 6 powder bags behind it. Pretty cool but, I believe it's much more impactful to visitors to stand next to an erect 16" round. Anyway, continued to head forward until we reached the gangplank to disembark the ship. Left the ship at ~1130.
We could have spent more time on the U.S.S. Iowa but, we wanted to do lunch with Conor before having to part ways. Enjoyed the opportunity to tour the battleship and I'm sure it's only going to get better!
For lunch we decided on going to an Island's restaurant off of Hawthorne Blvd near Conor's apartment. We need to get him home by 1400 so that he can prep for a wedding in the Valley he needs to attend for a buddy of his. Lunch was excellent! Rosie had chicken tacos. Conor and I had their classic hamburger with endless fries. Conor also had me try a 'Longboard' beer. Was pretty good.
Left Island's at 1245 and got Conor back to his place by 1300.
Was a sad but proud moment for Rosie and I as we exchanged hugs with Conor. We had such a blast with him over the past 8 days and really did not want to leave to go back to reality. As we left him in our rear view mirror, we're definitely buoyed by the fact that we arrived at Conor's bleak apartment 2 days ago and leave it more of a welcoming home for him as he continues to build his life here in SoCal. :-)
Was still quite early on this day so, decided to head back down to Manhattan Beach, park and just take a walk around - the day was just drop dead gorgeous! We found some public, underground parking a couple of blocks up from main street for just a couple of bucks. We headed downhill towards the city's pier. I continue to be surprised at how 'hilly' most of these beach communities are that we've visited. Very easy going down but, takes a bit of effort climbing back up from the beach areas. In all the photos Conor's shared with us prior to our visit, you really don't get a good sense of just how sloped the land is down to the water.
Manhattan Beach is a beach community. Our assessment was that it wasn't as crowded as it could have been on a Saturday but, there was still plenty of visitors and beach goers. Walked onto the pier and strolled all the way out to the end enjoying the sights, sounds and, smells of the ocean. There's a small pagoda like building at the end of the pier that houses a tiny aquarium open to anyone for a donation of your choosing. Dropped a fiver and spent 10mins inside before heading back out and walking back off the pier.
Climbed back up to the main drag and found Conor's former favorite ice cream parlor, Manhattan Beach Creamery, purchased a couple of yogurts and sat down inside to enjoy them and people watch outside the large panes of glass fronting the store. From there we headed back to parking, jumped in the SUV to drive over to the Enterprise dealer just off the airport to return our SUV. According to the garmin, the rental agency was between 1 - 1 1/2 miles from the Sheraton. I was going to drop off Rosie first but, she wanted to come along for the walk back.
The Enterprise return folks were great! They were fine with our awesome negotiated rate and gave us a ride back to the Sheraton! Got back to the hotel by 1500. I'm quite pleased to have down time with Rosie with nothing to go do/see here at the hotel. Spent the afternoon relaxing, enjoying a bit o'scotch and watching a good pay per view movie: the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It wasn't what we were expecting but, very good nonetheless. Wireless Internet was free for us because of my frequent guest status... not really that frequent but, have stayed with the Four Points in Sydney and up by Boston. Enabled us to catch up on our social networks and for me to take a bit of the edge off the hundreds of e-mails in by inbox!
After the movie and with time right at the start of 'blue-haired' dinner hour, ~1715, we headed down to the lobby to go have dinner in the 1 restaurant in the hotel called: Comfort. The food was fine, Rosie had a turkey burger with wine and I enjoyed the meatloaf with a beer. There was only 5 or 6 other guests enjoying dinner at this time of day in the restaurant. At 1800 headed back up to our room to begin the process of staging all of our luggage and repacking our bags for the flight out tomorrow. I also made some time to download photos from the day's activities. Put in a wake up call for 0500 just in case we slept in and wiled away some time before we turned in for the evening.
A little anti-climactic day overall but, still very good. We really hate leaving but, must go back to reality tomorrow.
Before we left the hotel to start our day, called down to concierge services to let them know that we wouldn't be needing maid service - our stuff is all over the place. :-)
Out the hotel by 0730 and stopped at a 'Mickey Ds' en route for a guilty breakfast. Called Conor to give him a heads up and see if he wanted anything - he did not... had already eaten. Picked him up at 0800 and continued on to the I405 south to I-110 which would take us to the San Pedro port area. The overall trip was about 15miles and we arrived at the U.S.S. Iowa's parking area around 0830. There was already a pretty long queue of folks, all pre-purchased ticket holders, waiting to get on the battleship. TV coverage was also on site and upfront. Not sure what other dignitaries would be participating in the opening day event.
Things certainly were not going very smoothly on this first day of the battleship's final role as museum piece. By 0930, a 1/2 hr after opening, very few of the pre-paids had gotten on to the ship. Many, if not all, of the general admission by the ticket today tourists had already gotten on to the ship and there was some serious grumblings going on with the long line of pre-paids! They certainly have some 'process' issues to sort out.
While we were patiently standing in line, we started up a conversation with a very nice couple behind us: Marvin & Phyllis Mackie. Turns out they were retired and lived here in San Pedro. They had strolled down to see what all the fuss was about and to tour the Iowa. They were very happy to have met us and stayed with us through out most of the directed tour of the ship. I was apparently a bevy of nautical information which was acknowledged by some of the volunteers working on the venerable battleship. :-)
We finally boarded Iowa at ~0945. From a distance the ship looks great but, as you board and get a closer look, the entire wooden deck needs serious work and there's a ton of other repairs and paint to be done over the next few years in order to truly make the experience one to remember. Until all of that work gets done, the ship will not be open to just wandering around anywhere you'd like to - like you can on the U.S.S. New Jersey, BB-62, in Camden - obviously, only those areas deemed safe enough to tour by the stewards of the ship.
Everyone boarding the ship had to follow a specified route. We obviously took a ton of photos all through the tour. There were areas such as the forward gun mounts where one could linger about for photos but, when you continued the tour you had to follow a prescribed path around the ship which was:
- Boarded amidships, starboard side,
- head aft until you reach the opening into the officer's wardroom,
- enter the wardroom and cross over to the port side of the ship,
- continue forward, port side up past and around the 2 forward gun mounts back to the starboard side. We paused to take photos by the 16" guns of turret #1. The volunteer Docent let us know that it took about 75 men/turret to operate it.
- continue back aft, starboard side, until you start being directed up several levels including through the closed navigation bridge and the armored 'panic' room, past a 5" gun turret, over past one of the port side Close In Weapon Systems (CIWS), continuing back aft to the levels holding the Tomahawk and Harpoon missile containers and then,
- finally back down a port side, aft ladder onto the main deck by the after section of gun turret #3.
- At this point you descend down to the 2nd deck where the beginnings of a museum about the ship is located. The ship's store is also here where one can buy snacks and beverages and all types of souvenirs. We made some purchases and it was in this part of the tour that we bid the Mackie's goodbye. When you have your fill of this part of the ship,
- exit back up a ladder that puts up out on the port side aft of the ship, forward of the gun turret.
- one can wander most of the aft deck of the ship, onto the helicopter pad and, get pretty cools views looking forward.
- from there as you head forward on the starboard side, you can take photos by a 16" round laying on the ground with 6 powder bags behind it. Pretty cool but, I believe it's much more impactful to visitors to stand next to an erect 16" round. Anyway, continued to head forward until we reached the gangplank to disembark the ship. Left the ship at ~1130.
We could have spent more time on the U.S.S. Iowa but, we wanted to do lunch with Conor before having to part ways. Enjoyed the opportunity to tour the battleship and I'm sure it's only going to get better!
For lunch we decided on going to an Island's restaurant off of Hawthorne Blvd near Conor's apartment. We need to get him home by 1400 so that he can prep for a wedding in the Valley he needs to attend for a buddy of his. Lunch was excellent! Rosie had chicken tacos. Conor and I had their classic hamburger with endless fries. Conor also had me try a 'Longboard' beer. Was pretty good.
Left Island's at 1245 and got Conor back to his place by 1300.
Was a sad but proud moment for Rosie and I as we exchanged hugs with Conor. We had such a blast with him over the past 8 days and really did not want to leave to go back to reality. As we left him in our rear view mirror, we're definitely buoyed by the fact that we arrived at Conor's bleak apartment 2 days ago and leave it more of a welcoming home for him as he continues to build his life here in SoCal. :-)
Was still quite early on this day so, decided to head back down to Manhattan Beach, park and just take a walk around - the day was just drop dead gorgeous! We found some public, underground parking a couple of blocks up from main street for just a couple of bucks. We headed downhill towards the city's pier. I continue to be surprised at how 'hilly' most of these beach communities are that we've visited. Very easy going down but, takes a bit of effort climbing back up from the beach areas. In all the photos Conor's shared with us prior to our visit, you really don't get a good sense of just how sloped the land is down to the water.
Manhattan Beach is a beach community. Our assessment was that it wasn't as crowded as it could have been on a Saturday but, there was still plenty of visitors and beach goers. Walked onto the pier and strolled all the way out to the end enjoying the sights, sounds and, smells of the ocean. There's a small pagoda like building at the end of the pier that houses a tiny aquarium open to anyone for a donation of your choosing. Dropped a fiver and spent 10mins inside before heading back out and walking back off the pier.
Climbed back up to the main drag and found Conor's former favorite ice cream parlor, Manhattan Beach Creamery, purchased a couple of yogurts and sat down inside to enjoy them and people watch outside the large panes of glass fronting the store. From there we headed back to parking, jumped in the SUV to drive over to the Enterprise dealer just off the airport to return our SUV. According to the garmin, the rental agency was between 1 - 1 1/2 miles from the Sheraton. I was going to drop off Rosie first but, she wanted to come along for the walk back.
The Enterprise return folks were great! They were fine with our awesome negotiated rate and gave us a ride back to the Sheraton! Got back to the hotel by 1500. I'm quite pleased to have down time with Rosie with nothing to go do/see here at the hotel. Spent the afternoon relaxing, enjoying a bit o'scotch and watching a good pay per view movie: the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It wasn't what we were expecting but, very good nonetheless. Wireless Internet was free for us because of my frequent guest status... not really that frequent but, have stayed with the Four Points in Sydney and up by Boston. Enabled us to catch up on our social networks and for me to take a bit of the edge off the hundreds of e-mails in by inbox!
After the movie and with time right at the start of 'blue-haired' dinner hour, ~1715, we headed down to the lobby to go have dinner in the 1 restaurant in the hotel called: Comfort. The food was fine, Rosie had a turkey burger with wine and I enjoyed the meatloaf with a beer. There was only 5 or 6 other guests enjoying dinner at this time of day in the restaurant. At 1800 headed back up to our room to begin the process of staging all of our luggage and repacking our bags for the flight out tomorrow. I also made some time to download photos from the day's activities. Put in a wake up call for 0500 just in case we slept in and wiled away some time before we turned in for the evening.
A little anti-climactic day overall but, still very good. We really hate leaving but, must go back to reality tomorrow.
Day 8: North Redondo and Surrounding Area
Up very early on this Friday, ~0600, after a fit full sleep on the air mattress. It wasn't uncomfortable, although I believe we should have inflated it more fully for the 1st time, I just had work swirling around in my head!
We still had a lot to accomplish on this day to get Conor's apartment sorted out including waiting for IKEA's delivery service to deliver his new couch sometime between 0900-1300. Took a shower and by 0630, Conor had rolled out of bed, threw on some clothes and, was ready to head out to Sam's Club with me. We left Rosie behind to catch IKEA, just in case our shopping went long.
Made good time, Sam's isn't that far away, and parked in a very sparsely populated lot. This was Conor's first experience accessing Sam's way before general access, 0700, and he was duly impressed. It's why I pay a little extra on the membership dues... it's quiet, no crowds, no rush - pleasant. :-)
Spent most of our time debating the merits of mid-sized HD TVs and finally decided on a 43" Vizio Smart LCD TV (our early birthday present for Conor). Although we didn't find everything we wanted, we also picked up: a big fan that will fit into a corner of his apartment; a portable, collapsible dolly; trash bags; peanut butter, and; ketchup. Check out was a breeze and we loaded up the SUV.
I would normally not agree to shopping at Target but, being this was an extraordinary circumstance, caved, decided to head that way to pick up as much as we could on our remaining shopping list. Along the way, we stopped at a Bank of America so that Conor could deposit a check, bought $20 worth of gas and, hit a Starbucks in a Mall - found via Yelp - for coffee and pastries for breakfast. Didn't spend alot of time in Target and picked up everything we were looking for except for lamps. Added a small microwave, iron & board and, a hot water pot to our SUV load of goods we packed back to his apartment. Got back to his place by 0910 and unloaded the SUV. No IKEA delivery.
At 0945 Rosie and Conor headed back out to find lamps that would fit in this apartment without taking up too much space. I stayed back to catch IKEA. They returned about an hour later - still no IKEA - and we worked on building lamps. The lamps were very tall and narrow and took a bit of constructing to get set-up. With that chore done, I took our 3 'if it fits, it ships' post office mailers out in search of a Post Office.
Side note: My garmin, showed quite a few post offices nearby but, the first 3 I drove to were either closed down or converted to some other business. A bit sad to see how much the US Postal Service has had to retract in these tough economic times and with other complementary competitors i.e., UPS and Fedex, eating in to classic mail service. Not to mention the use of the world wide web to move things around and communicate.
Finally found on my 4th attempt, the Torrence Post Office, dropped off our packages to be delivered to Long Valley, NJ, for just about $46 and, got back to Grant Ave, apartment #8B at ~1315. Still NO IKEA. Since we were all a bit peckish, Conor and I went out to get lunch at a nearby Italian deli, Guiliano's. Brought back a couple of meatball subs and an anti-pasta salad. They were excellent! As we started to dig in, heard a knock on the door and, lo and behold, IKEA delivery!
Time, 1415, the delivery guys were over a hour late and we'd just wasted 1/2 a day waiting for a delivery that was promised earlier. The overall communication between IKEA dispatch and us was abysmal! Had Rosie and Conor not called IKEA, several times and got put on extended holds, we'd have had no idea what was going on and even then it was unclear as to how late the delivery guys would be. The actual guys on site got caught up at another location and went long. They claim to have informed their dispatch who, didn't tell us. I fully expect Conor to get a refund on the $59 cash he paid out to have it delivered next day.
The 3 seat couch comes in pieces... I guess that shouldn't have been a surprise to me based on all of the experience we have with IKEA but, for $500 I was expecting a fully formed couch to roll into Conor's apartment! NOT! We had to build it. Everything was going pretty well with the build until we got to the footings. Three of them went on just fine, the 4th had stripped threads and there was nothing to be done. So, Conor went out with Rosie to find a hardware store to buy a tap set. They went in search of a Lowes/Home Depot but found an Ace Hardware store. Both of them were very impressed with how knowledgeable and helpful the Ace guy was and they left with not only a tap set but also, the knowledge of how to use it. Applied it to the stripped footing hole and, ta da, the 4th footing went on just fine. He now has a very nice, 3 person couch with a throw rug between the couch and his new house warming gift, the TV. Of course he has no service at the moment. :-)
It was now ~1600 and we were all itching to get out and access some Internet. So, we headed out in search of a good Starbucks. We took the long route via a quick tour of main street Manhattan Beach, Conor's very recent stomping grounds and then to his office building and through his parking lot in El Segundo. Manhattan Beach is gorgeous and right on the Pacific Ocean particularly on this day as the weather has really turned awesome. Definitely easy to see the allure of living there and, how expensive it would be! The Northrop Grumman complex is huge and Conor's office is just 1 of the buildings there. I did not realize, until Conor pointed it out, that the F-35 'Lightning IIs' production line is right there! Very cool.
Found a Starbucks that looked lonely at the corner of Douglas and Rosecrans near the Northrop Grumman facilities. Parked and went in. We got comfortable at a table and logged on to their free Internet... I do love Starbucks! We all got beverages. I tried their iced green tea for the first time and it was very refreshing. They lace it with a hint of mint. Rosie got a call from Meg... she and Mike had just landed back in Newark from their week in Aruba. It was very nice hearing from her. They had a great time and we were happy for them. Will catch back up with her later. We all surfed for about 45mins. During that time we decided that we'd go and catch the movie, Brave, at one of many theatres around.
Left Starbucks at 1800 for Arclight Beach Cities Theatres - it's quite huge, no surprise for this part of the country - in Manhattan Beach. Bought our tickets for the 1830 showing of Brave via a kiosk for $14.50/adult and went in. Bought some sodas, popcorn, candy and took our comfortable seats in the theatre.
We thoroughly enjoyed the 1+45 animated movie! Was over at 2015. On this particular day, we dropped off Conor at his place at 2030 and we drove on over to our hotel, the Four Points Sheraton, right off the airport for the evening. Got to the hotel at 2100 after putting another $30 of gas in the SUV at a Phillips 66 along the way. While I parked Rosie checked us in. Our room, 322. We got ourselves situated in the room and called it a night after I jotted down some journal notes.
A busy day. We were very happy to have accomplished everything we wanted to do for Conor and we still have tomorrow, Saturday, left to spend some quality time with him. Our goals tomorrow:
Visit and tour the U.S.S. Iowa, BB-61, in San Pedro and to say our goodbyes to Conor! Gonna be fun and sad at the same time.
We still had a lot to accomplish on this day to get Conor's apartment sorted out including waiting for IKEA's delivery service to deliver his new couch sometime between 0900-1300. Took a shower and by 0630, Conor had rolled out of bed, threw on some clothes and, was ready to head out to Sam's Club with me. We left Rosie behind to catch IKEA, just in case our shopping went long.
Made good time, Sam's isn't that far away, and parked in a very sparsely populated lot. This was Conor's first experience accessing Sam's way before general access, 0700, and he was duly impressed. It's why I pay a little extra on the membership dues... it's quiet, no crowds, no rush - pleasant. :-)
Spent most of our time debating the merits of mid-sized HD TVs and finally decided on a 43" Vizio Smart LCD TV (our early birthday present for Conor). Although we didn't find everything we wanted, we also picked up: a big fan that will fit into a corner of his apartment; a portable, collapsible dolly; trash bags; peanut butter, and; ketchup. Check out was a breeze and we loaded up the SUV.
I would normally not agree to shopping at Target but, being this was an extraordinary circumstance, caved, decided to head that way to pick up as much as we could on our remaining shopping list. Along the way, we stopped at a Bank of America so that Conor could deposit a check, bought $20 worth of gas and, hit a Starbucks in a Mall - found via Yelp - for coffee and pastries for breakfast. Didn't spend alot of time in Target and picked up everything we were looking for except for lamps. Added a small microwave, iron & board and, a hot water pot to our SUV load of goods we packed back to his apartment. Got back to his place by 0910 and unloaded the SUV. No IKEA delivery.
At 0945 Rosie and Conor headed back out to find lamps that would fit in this apartment without taking up too much space. I stayed back to catch IKEA. They returned about an hour later - still no IKEA - and we worked on building lamps. The lamps were very tall and narrow and took a bit of constructing to get set-up. With that chore done, I took our 3 'if it fits, it ships' post office mailers out in search of a Post Office.
Side note: My garmin, showed quite a few post offices nearby but, the first 3 I drove to were either closed down or converted to some other business. A bit sad to see how much the US Postal Service has had to retract in these tough economic times and with other complementary competitors i.e., UPS and Fedex, eating in to classic mail service. Not to mention the use of the world wide web to move things around and communicate.
Finally found on my 4th attempt, the Torrence Post Office, dropped off our packages to be delivered to Long Valley, NJ, for just about $46 and, got back to Grant Ave, apartment #8B at ~1315. Still NO IKEA. Since we were all a bit peckish, Conor and I went out to get lunch at a nearby Italian deli, Guiliano's. Brought back a couple of meatball subs and an anti-pasta salad. They were excellent! As we started to dig in, heard a knock on the door and, lo and behold, IKEA delivery!
Time, 1415, the delivery guys were over a hour late and we'd just wasted 1/2 a day waiting for a delivery that was promised earlier. The overall communication between IKEA dispatch and us was abysmal! Had Rosie and Conor not called IKEA, several times and got put on extended holds, we'd have had no idea what was going on and even then it was unclear as to how late the delivery guys would be. The actual guys on site got caught up at another location and went long. They claim to have informed their dispatch who, didn't tell us. I fully expect Conor to get a refund on the $59 cash he paid out to have it delivered next day.
The 3 seat couch comes in pieces... I guess that shouldn't have been a surprise to me based on all of the experience we have with IKEA but, for $500 I was expecting a fully formed couch to roll into Conor's apartment! NOT! We had to build it. Everything was going pretty well with the build until we got to the footings. Three of them went on just fine, the 4th had stripped threads and there was nothing to be done. So, Conor went out with Rosie to find a hardware store to buy a tap set. They went in search of a Lowes/Home Depot but found an Ace Hardware store. Both of them were very impressed with how knowledgeable and helpful the Ace guy was and they left with not only a tap set but also, the knowledge of how to use it. Applied it to the stripped footing hole and, ta da, the 4th footing went on just fine. He now has a very nice, 3 person couch with a throw rug between the couch and his new house warming gift, the TV. Of course he has no service at the moment. :-)
It was now ~1600 and we were all itching to get out and access some Internet. So, we headed out in search of a good Starbucks. We took the long route via a quick tour of main street Manhattan Beach, Conor's very recent stomping grounds and then to his office building and through his parking lot in El Segundo. Manhattan Beach is gorgeous and right on the Pacific Ocean particularly on this day as the weather has really turned awesome. Definitely easy to see the allure of living there and, how expensive it would be! The Northrop Grumman complex is huge and Conor's office is just 1 of the buildings there. I did not realize, until Conor pointed it out, that the F-35 'Lightning IIs' production line is right there! Very cool.
Found a Starbucks that looked lonely at the corner of Douglas and Rosecrans near the Northrop Grumman facilities. Parked and went in. We got comfortable at a table and logged on to their free Internet... I do love Starbucks! We all got beverages. I tried their iced green tea for the first time and it was very refreshing. They lace it with a hint of mint. Rosie got a call from Meg... she and Mike had just landed back in Newark from their week in Aruba. It was very nice hearing from her. They had a great time and we were happy for them. Will catch back up with her later. We all surfed for about 45mins. During that time we decided that we'd go and catch the movie, Brave, at one of many theatres around.
Left Starbucks at 1800 for Arclight Beach Cities Theatres - it's quite huge, no surprise for this part of the country - in Manhattan Beach. Bought our tickets for the 1830 showing of Brave via a kiosk for $14.50/adult and went in. Bought some sodas, popcorn, candy and took our comfortable seats in the theatre.
We thoroughly enjoyed the 1+45 animated movie! Was over at 2015. On this particular day, we dropped off Conor at his place at 2030 and we drove on over to our hotel, the Four Points Sheraton, right off the airport for the evening. Got to the hotel at 2100 after putting another $30 of gas in the SUV at a Phillips 66 along the way. While I parked Rosie checked us in. Our room, 322. We got ourselves situated in the room and called it a night after I jotted down some journal notes.
A busy day. We were very happy to have accomplished everything we wanted to do for Conor and we still have tomorrow, Saturday, left to spend some quality time with him. Our goals tomorrow:
Visit and tour the U.S.S. Iowa, BB-61, in San Pedro and to say our goodbyes to Conor! Gonna be fun and sad at the same time.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Day 7: Morro Bay to North Redondo Beach
Another good morning! Up at 0630 and just jotting down some notes before we get cleaned up and head out for the day. This will be our most aggressive driving day because of our destination goal: North Redondo Beach and Conor's apartment. Approximately 300miles in 1 day... more than we've done the whole trip. Rosie and I just know we're going to need as much time as possible provisioning Conor apartment while we're in SoCal.
Drive plan of the day:
- Stick to PCH as much as we can through:
- San Luis Obispo
- Pismo Beach
- Oceano
- Bromela
- Guadalupe
- Orcutt
- Lompoc
- Las Cruces
- North up to Solvang on Hwy 101
- Back south onto PCH in Las Cruces, where PCH turns into Hwy 101
- Capitan
- Past Goleta
- Lunch in Santa Barbara
- Carpinteria
- Ventura
- Exit back on to PCH via Oxnard
- Past Port Hueneme
- Quick stop at Neptune's Net
- On to Malibu
- Santa Monica
- Past LAX
- to North Redondo Beach
I planned on driving us to Solvang and then I'd give over driving to Conor to take us down to his city.
Back to the blog:
The day before we'd asked around for a good place for breakfast... turns out the small restaurant you might miss if you weren't looking for it near where the DSRV is parked, Frankie & Lola's, was highly recommended and we piled into the SUV and drove the short distance at 0745. Drove because we wanted to take a quick drive out to Morro Bay rock just to say, 'been there, done that' after breakfast. The weather this morning: cool, gray, overcast and misty. Frankie and Lola's appearance isn't anything to write home about, very simple and functional. Having said that, breakfast was great! The cook/chef actual came out and hand delivered by grits and butter! Nice touch. Found out that Conor like's a good corned beef hash as his meat for breakfast like someone else I know... Me! :-)
After breakfast we drove over to Morro Rock via the one road, Coleman Drive. There were already more than a handful of cars/trucks already there parked with their occupants either fishing, surfing or just looking. The road only goes about halfway round the base of the rock and you're not allowed to climb it at all. You get a very nice view of the entrance to Morro Bay harbor and of the harbor in general and the massive power plant adjacent to the city. Drove back to the hotel, packed the SUV and checked out by 0915. We really enjoyed our time in Morro Bay.
Continued on Hwy 101 until we hit Pismo Beach. Exited there as soon as we saw signs back onto PCH/Hwy 1 and headed on to Guadalupe. The most impressive thing to me about the drive on Hwy 1 through this part of the state was the agriculture. Agriculture was all over the place and of all types of growth. It was really expansive and just felt larger than the agriculture in Ventura Valley. Conor did tell us that this part of California or California in general was known as the 'Salad Bowl' of the country. Certainly fits!
Highway 1 in this part of the state took us through Orcutt, past Vandenburg Air Force Base and it's related hamlet, Vandenburg Village, on down to Lompoc. I'm not sure why I wanted to go through Lompoc so badly. Conor had advised us that there was not much there except for a prison... and he was right. Definitely just a pass through. I could have taken Rt. 246 out of Lompoc directly to Solvang but, I wanted to do as much of PCH as possible so we continued down to Las Cruces which added an extra 10miles to the journey. No big deal. Once we hit Las Cruces we went north on Hwy 101 until we reached Solvang at 1145. Once in Solvang you feel like you've been transported to Denmark - Danish architecture and shops everywhere... until you hear everyone speaking then, you feel like you're in Europe in general because of the variety of dialects you hear being spoken along the streets and buildings of the town.
On this Thursday, the city was quite busy and it took us a while to find parking. Once parked we strolled around some just enjoying the shops, people and architecture. We did just a tiny bit of souvenir shopping. My most notable purchase was a pair of 'lighted' reading glasses for Rosie and I. The day had cleared and was gorgeous again. Rosie had read on trip advisor that there was a miniature horse farm on the outskirts of the city that was free to visit and very cool so, we headed out there for a visit. The Quicksilver Farm specialized in miniature horses and there were quite a few and they were adorable! Rosie was in heaven! Spent a good 20mins there just taking photos, she also bought a t-shirt, before leaving to continue our trip south and to look for a place for lunch. Sadly, we found no place of interest for lunch as Conor drove back through Solvang and we continued back onto Hwy 101 south to Las Cruces where the highway bends to the left, more southeasterly, and on to Santa Barbara - where I knew we could get a good lunch. We'd left Solvang at ~1245.
An hour later we'd taken one of the Santa Barbara exits with Stearns Wharf on the beach in Santa Barbara in mind. The Wharf is a reinforced pier with stores and restaurants perched upon it and sturdy enough for vehicles to buy parking tickets, drive onto the wharf and park. We found parking near the end of the wharf and got out. We were definitely peckish, time was 1345, and the first interesting restaurant we saw was Moby Dick's so, in we went. We had to wait for about 10 mins to get seated, no worries, and they seated us by a table looking out into Santa Barbara's small harbor where there were a dozen small sailboats racing! Conor was very interested since he's taken up sailing lessons himself. For lunch: Rosie ordered Caesar's Salad with shrimp; Conor had the same with salmon, and; I enjoyed fish and chips. Enjoyed our lunch but we were itching to get back on the road for Redondo. Departed Stearn's Wharf at 1500... we still had another 100miles to go.
Stayed on the 101 until we took an exit for Oxnard and PCH. We wound our way through Oxnard. Passed north of Port Hueneme and waved at my former base, Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) West, Pt. Mugu, formerly Pacific Missile Test Center (PMTC) on our way to a brief stop at Neptune's Net for old times sake. We just took a biology break and made a quick pass through the Net before hitting PCH south again towards Malibu. I have to admit I may have dozed off some during this leg of our trip. I do recall hearing Rosie say, Zuma Beach and Paradise Cove. :-) We made our way through all of the beach communities including Malibu and Santa Monica before taking the I-10 to the I-405 south to exit off towards his apartment in North Redondo Beach. Arrived at ~1730.
We unpacked the SUV and started our hectic shopping spree! First, Conor and I drove to his nearest Post Office to pick up some mailers while Rosie stayed back to sort through our luggage and purchases during the week. Got back with 3 mailers, picked up Rosie and headed out to the nearest IKEA to shop for whatever we needed to begin provisioning his apartment.
Side Note: Conor doesn't have alot of space in his ground level apartment off of Grant Avenue but, he does have a single car garage and a very small back porch/patio. Besides the brand new refrigerator we helped him acquire, he only had his trappings from college days which include a bed, an IKEA desk and storage furniture, no chairs except for the fold out canvas one he uses and some odds and ends in kitchenware.
We purchased quite a bit while in IKEA including a sofa and throw rug. The sofa would be delivered on Friday - sometime. Other purchases: 4 chairs, some tupperware-like storage containers, hot pads, a full length mirror for his bedroom and, a garbage can. We had to keep in mind the constraints of his small accommodations. Conor had done a good job of measuring how big things could be to fit inside his apartment. Left IKEA and headed towards Sam's Club. Unfortunately it was closed! Not a complete loss because we'd be back early in the morning - Conor didn't know that Sam's opens at 7am for particular Club members - to continue our shopping and we found an IN-N-Out burger place for dinner nearby. Conor treated. :-) Decided, due to these special circumstances, to head over to Target to do some shopping and it was open. On this evening Rosie and Conor bought a full size blow up mattress for us to sleep on and 4 pillows.
Got back to his apartment by 2145 via a liquor store near his place where I bought some Glen Morangie Quinta Ruban and a bottle of Maker's Mark for his house warming gift. Unloaded the SUV, quite thankful for how big it was which really helped with the shopping we were doing, and spent the next hour building his 4 chairs and blowing up the air mattress for our bed. Before hitting the air 'rack', enjoyed a good jigger of single malt on ice!
Was probably the least fun traveling day of the trip so far because we felt a bit of pressure to get to North Redondo but, a very good day nonetheless.
It's gonna be another busy day tomorrow, Friday, 7/6/2012!
Drive plan of the day:
- Stick to PCH as much as we can through:
- San Luis Obispo
- Pismo Beach
- Oceano
- Bromela
- Guadalupe
- Orcutt
- Lompoc
- Las Cruces
- North up to Solvang on Hwy 101
- Back south onto PCH in Las Cruces, where PCH turns into Hwy 101
- Capitan
- Past Goleta
- Lunch in Santa Barbara
- Carpinteria
- Ventura
- Exit back on to PCH via Oxnard
- Past Port Hueneme
- Quick stop at Neptune's Net
- On to Malibu
- Santa Monica
- Past LAX
- to North Redondo Beach
I planned on driving us to Solvang and then I'd give over driving to Conor to take us down to his city.
Back to the blog:
The day before we'd asked around for a good place for breakfast... turns out the small restaurant you might miss if you weren't looking for it near where the DSRV is parked, Frankie & Lola's, was highly recommended and we piled into the SUV and drove the short distance at 0745. Drove because we wanted to take a quick drive out to Morro Bay rock just to say, 'been there, done that' after breakfast. The weather this morning: cool, gray, overcast and misty. Frankie and Lola's appearance isn't anything to write home about, very simple and functional. Having said that, breakfast was great! The cook/chef actual came out and hand delivered by grits and butter! Nice touch. Found out that Conor like's a good corned beef hash as his meat for breakfast like someone else I know... Me! :-)
After breakfast we drove over to Morro Rock via the one road, Coleman Drive. There were already more than a handful of cars/trucks already there parked with their occupants either fishing, surfing or just looking. The road only goes about halfway round the base of the rock and you're not allowed to climb it at all. You get a very nice view of the entrance to Morro Bay harbor and of the harbor in general and the massive power plant adjacent to the city. Drove back to the hotel, packed the SUV and checked out by 0915. We really enjoyed our time in Morro Bay.
Continued on Hwy 101 until we hit Pismo Beach. Exited there as soon as we saw signs back onto PCH/Hwy 1 and headed on to Guadalupe. The most impressive thing to me about the drive on Hwy 1 through this part of the state was the agriculture. Agriculture was all over the place and of all types of growth. It was really expansive and just felt larger than the agriculture in Ventura Valley. Conor did tell us that this part of California or California in general was known as the 'Salad Bowl' of the country. Certainly fits!
Highway 1 in this part of the state took us through Orcutt, past Vandenburg Air Force Base and it's related hamlet, Vandenburg Village, on down to Lompoc. I'm not sure why I wanted to go through Lompoc so badly. Conor had advised us that there was not much there except for a prison... and he was right. Definitely just a pass through. I could have taken Rt. 246 out of Lompoc directly to Solvang but, I wanted to do as much of PCH as possible so we continued down to Las Cruces which added an extra 10miles to the journey. No big deal. Once we hit Las Cruces we went north on Hwy 101 until we reached Solvang at 1145. Once in Solvang you feel like you've been transported to Denmark - Danish architecture and shops everywhere... until you hear everyone speaking then, you feel like you're in Europe in general because of the variety of dialects you hear being spoken along the streets and buildings of the town.
On this Thursday, the city was quite busy and it took us a while to find parking. Once parked we strolled around some just enjoying the shops, people and architecture. We did just a tiny bit of souvenir shopping. My most notable purchase was a pair of 'lighted' reading glasses for Rosie and I. The day had cleared and was gorgeous again. Rosie had read on trip advisor that there was a miniature horse farm on the outskirts of the city that was free to visit and very cool so, we headed out there for a visit. The Quicksilver Farm specialized in miniature horses and there were quite a few and they were adorable! Rosie was in heaven! Spent a good 20mins there just taking photos, she also bought a t-shirt, before leaving to continue our trip south and to look for a place for lunch. Sadly, we found no place of interest for lunch as Conor drove back through Solvang and we continued back onto Hwy 101 south to Las Cruces where the highway bends to the left, more southeasterly, and on to Santa Barbara - where I knew we could get a good lunch. We'd left Solvang at ~1245.
An hour later we'd taken one of the Santa Barbara exits with Stearns Wharf on the beach in Santa Barbara in mind. The Wharf is a reinforced pier with stores and restaurants perched upon it and sturdy enough for vehicles to buy parking tickets, drive onto the wharf and park. We found parking near the end of the wharf and got out. We were definitely peckish, time was 1345, and the first interesting restaurant we saw was Moby Dick's so, in we went. We had to wait for about 10 mins to get seated, no worries, and they seated us by a table looking out into Santa Barbara's small harbor where there were a dozen small sailboats racing! Conor was very interested since he's taken up sailing lessons himself. For lunch: Rosie ordered Caesar's Salad with shrimp; Conor had the same with salmon, and; I enjoyed fish and chips. Enjoyed our lunch but we were itching to get back on the road for Redondo. Departed Stearn's Wharf at 1500... we still had another 100miles to go.
Stayed on the 101 until we took an exit for Oxnard and PCH. We wound our way through Oxnard. Passed north of Port Hueneme and waved at my former base, Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) West, Pt. Mugu, formerly Pacific Missile Test Center (PMTC) on our way to a brief stop at Neptune's Net for old times sake. We just took a biology break and made a quick pass through the Net before hitting PCH south again towards Malibu. I have to admit I may have dozed off some during this leg of our trip. I do recall hearing Rosie say, Zuma Beach and Paradise Cove. :-) We made our way through all of the beach communities including Malibu and Santa Monica before taking the I-10 to the I-405 south to exit off towards his apartment in North Redondo Beach. Arrived at ~1730.
We unpacked the SUV and started our hectic shopping spree! First, Conor and I drove to his nearest Post Office to pick up some mailers while Rosie stayed back to sort through our luggage and purchases during the week. Got back with 3 mailers, picked up Rosie and headed out to the nearest IKEA to shop for whatever we needed to begin provisioning his apartment.
Side Note: Conor doesn't have alot of space in his ground level apartment off of Grant Avenue but, he does have a single car garage and a very small back porch/patio. Besides the brand new refrigerator we helped him acquire, he only had his trappings from college days which include a bed, an IKEA desk and storage furniture, no chairs except for the fold out canvas one he uses and some odds and ends in kitchenware.
We purchased quite a bit while in IKEA including a sofa and throw rug. The sofa would be delivered on Friday - sometime. Other purchases: 4 chairs, some tupperware-like storage containers, hot pads, a full length mirror for his bedroom and, a garbage can. We had to keep in mind the constraints of his small accommodations. Conor had done a good job of measuring how big things could be to fit inside his apartment. Left IKEA and headed towards Sam's Club. Unfortunately it was closed! Not a complete loss because we'd be back early in the morning - Conor didn't know that Sam's opens at 7am for particular Club members - to continue our shopping and we found an IN-N-Out burger place for dinner nearby. Conor treated. :-) Decided, due to these special circumstances, to head over to Target to do some shopping and it was open. On this evening Rosie and Conor bought a full size blow up mattress for us to sleep on and 4 pillows.
Got back to his apartment by 2145 via a liquor store near his place where I bought some Glen Morangie Quinta Ruban and a bottle of Maker's Mark for his house warming gift. Unloaded the SUV, quite thankful for how big it was which really helped with the shopping we were doing, and spent the next hour building his 4 chairs and blowing up the air mattress for our bed. Before hitting the air 'rack', enjoyed a good jigger of single malt on ice!
Was probably the least fun traveling day of the trip so far because we felt a bit of pressure to get to North Redondo but, a very good day nonetheless.
It's gonna be another busy day tomorrow, Friday, 7/6/2012!
Day 6: Big Sur to Morro Bay
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
July 4, 2012
Well, had a very rocky night. I was up multiple times with tons of gas and the feeling/need to spend time on the porcelain throne. We've got a long day in front of us, at least we believe so. Didn't know it at the time but, we'd end up driving about 100miles down PCH on this day.
Anyway, all of us were up by 0630 and started to pack the up for the day. Made a stop at the Lodge to pick up the odd souvenir and get a recommendation for breakfast. Rosie discovered while speaking with some of the folks working in the Lodge that there was a nice breakfast spot just down the PCH from the Lodge and that's where we decided to eventually have breakfast.
Left the lodge at 0730 and drove south on PCH no more than a couple of miles to the Big Sur Bakery for continental breakfast. The Bakery is located next to a General Store to it's north and adjacent to a noveau art gallery with a large variety of cacti plants and interesting art strewn about the property. Just in front of the Bakery was a tiny gas station with Shell badging that stated this was the last gas stop for 40miles... not that far. Still, they were charging over $5.00/gallon for fuel! Ahh, I was getting abit low on fuel but, not low enough to by any fuel here! My guess is that their primary customer base would be 2 to 3 wheeled. As you enter the brown wood building, you can smell the recently baked goods and coffee, delicious. We all ordered some type of coffee and pastries. I chose a natural cherry pastry and ham & cheese croissant. Quite good. After our breakfast we drove back to our cottage, packed the SUV, checked out of the Lodge and were back on PCH at 0830 heading back north to visit some of the more touristy areas to see what those places had to offer. We'd definitely be happy to return to Pheiffer Big Sur State Park!
We had passed this clustering of gift shops, places to eat and Inn, the day before while heading up to the Lodge. Had some interesting shops and we only spent about 15mins just wandering around. I picked up a fairly detailed map of the coastline from Monterey down to Vandenburg Air Force Base. Having it would definitely help us throughout the day.
Finally back on the road south by 0900 and we didn't have to travel long before we encountered, Nepenthe's! Only about 3miles from the Lodge on PCH. It has a terrific gift shop called Phoenix, a cafe, a bar and restaurant located right off of PCH on a cliff with spectacular views down to the Pacific. The restaurant was situated on the 3rd level on top of all of the other venues. We could see the water but, not very well due to the overcast and mist of the morning. In retropect, had we known of Nepenthe's existence earlier, we'd probably have waited to sit for breakfast until we got here. Oh well, maybe next time. Anyway, the cafe, on the 2nd level stacked just above the gift shop, was open for breakfast but, the restaurant was still closed and wouldn't open until 1130 (by the time we got to Nepenthe's and finished browsing the gift shop, it was 1045). So, on with our journey!
Rosie actually had an interim natural wonder she wanted us to see just about 10 miles down the road from Nepenthe's: McWay Falls in Julia Pheiffer Burns State Park. It was at this location back in the early '80s that a landslide took out a big chunk of the PCH but, obviously, was eventually repaired. Took over a year to rebuild and the landslide changed the shape of the inlet adjacent to the falls.
As you approach the falls, PCH curves to the left. Just before the curve in the road we noticed quite a few vehicles parked on the side of the road and then noticed the sign for parking on the left and turned in. Parking was free. There's a short ~1/2 walk which leads you from the parking lot along a dirt path and through a short tunnel underneath the PCH. As you emerge at the other end, signs point to the right to continue on to the observation point and the foundation remnants of Julia Pfeiffer's home that was demolished by the State Park service as mandated by her will. There are opportunites all along the cliff edge path to take fantastic shots of the cove, beach, ocean and, the actual reason for our visit: the waterfall cascading down onto the beach. It's really quite a serene location with amazing vistas of McWay Falls, the coastline and, ocean. I was a bit saddened that the home that used to stand at the observation point overlooking all of this fabulous scenery including palm trees - that felt out of place but, cool - had been taken down years back in line with the last wishes of it's former owners. It could have generated a ton of visitation revenue which could have been used for maintenance and/or repairs.
Left the Park and meandered our way much further south through all of the various parks along the way to Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery just north of San Simeon, W.R. Hearst State Park and Hearst Castle. It's a protected sanctuary for elephant seals to calf babies. The last time we visited it was much cooler and I don't recall anyone else in the parking lot to stare at the elephant seals. This time the place was packed with people and a handful of Docent's to answer questions visitors had. They also had a small table holding a small number of items for purchase, one of which was a hat that I bought for $15 to support the rookery. We spend a good deal of time photographing and filming all of the seals on the beach and in the water before needing to leave because of Conor's need for a biology break. :-) Before we left, I asked one of the Docent's if there was a good place to eat nearby and she said, yes, Sebastian's in San Simeon. So, on we continued.
It was only 3miles to San Simeon nestled on the W.R. Hearst Memorial State beach at the base of the entrance to Hearst Castle right off of PCH. We pulled off onto Slo San Simeon Road, the only road through the small village of San Simeon and pulled up and parked at Sebastian's. Very cool building. From the parking lot you can easily see Hearst Castle. As you look towards the structure that contains Sebastian's Store and Cafe, you notice that there's outside seating for diners and on this day, there were quite a few. As you enter the building, if you go left there's a wine tasting bar and a handful of tables and chairs for patrons to use. We went right and queued up to place our lunch orders. It's all cash here. While Rosie and I stood in line, Conor went outside and stood in line to use the 1 co-ed restroom in a separate structure adjacent to the outside eating area. He joined us in line shortly thereafter. Rosie and I ordered turkey clubs with avocados while Conor ordered the buffalo chicken salad. I have to say that the club sandwiches we ordered were huge and probably the best I've had. Conor's salad was ginormous and quite spicy. Conor found and squatted at a table for us while we brought the food inside to the seating area near the wine tasting bar.
Fabulous lunch - which we couldn't finish. Instead of heading up to the Hearst Castle Visitor's Center after lunch, we made the short trip to the adjacent state beach, parked and just wandered about taking in the environment and refreshing sea breeze of the day. There were quite a few families and friends having BBQs and picnics at this beach and many visitors strolling out on to the long pier. There were a handful of folks actually fishing. :-) Rosie was entralled because not only were there a handful of pteryldactls on the pier, she was actually able to pet one! Several of the pelicans on the pier had huge fish in their gullets, at least we hoped they were fish, and apparently couldn't swallow them at the moment. We made our way back to the SUV and headed up Hearst Castle road to the Visitor's center. Got there about 1500.
Unfortunately, the next trip up to see/tour the lower levels of the Castle, a 2 1/2 hr tour, wasn't until 1630 so, we decided not to wait and burn that time waiting for the tour. Spent a little time touring the parking lot and taking photos of San Simeon before jumping back in the SUV and continuing our trek south. We agreed to find lodging someplace not too far away and, if we felt like it, could make our way back up to Hearst Castle the following morning for a visit. We drove through the actual town of San Simeon located 3 miles from the state beach passed through and, stopped for $20 worth of expensive Shell gas in the city of Cambria. Regular gas cost $4.40 a gallon!! Conor yelped for gas and found some for much more reasonable prices, $3.85/gallon, further to the south so, we continued on. That place with cheaper gas just happened to be Morro Bay.
Morro Bay, California... what a very pleasant surprise! The first thing you notice while driving south on PCH as you near the city is the enormous solitary rock that rises out of the sea fronting Morro Bay and helping to form it's harbor. Turns out Morro Bay is one of the last fishing villages, home to one of the last fishing fleets in California. Conor took one of the exits leading into Morro Bay and pulled into a Mobil gas station so that I could refill the SUV. While we were refueling, Rosie yelped places to stay, found some and called up a place very near where we had exited: the Beach Bungaloo Inn & Suites for ~$229/night - we took it! Apparently, someone had recently canceled and they had an opening. Excellent choice! Our lodging had 2 separate bedrooms for the 3 of us and, was positioned only blocks up from the fishing harbor, easy walking distance for us.
We made short work of unloading the SUV into our room, the Blue Butterfly, strapped on a few light back packs and, with cameras in hand, headed out and down to the harbor. Time was ~1630.
One of the first things Conor and I noticed when we got down to the harbor, was the cool and familiar sight of a DSRV just mounted on a mobile frame in a parking lot by a small row of shops with a power station towering above it in the background... we made our way over to it. Turns out this was the DSRV-2, 'Avalon', 1 of 2 Mystic class DSRVs developed and built by Lockheed for the U.S. Navy, specifically for Deep Sea Recovery after the USS Thresher, SSN-593, disaster. How cool was that? Finding a DSRV just sitting around the fishing village of Morro Bay! At 50' long, she was designed to be air transportable and was rated at 1500m (5,000ft) diving depth and could recover up to 24 submariners at a time should she need to. During her 29 year career, she was stationed at Naval Air Station, North Island in San Diego. Commissioned in 1971 she was decommissioned in 2000. Her sister ship, Mystic, is somewhere out East also decommissioned and awaiting life in a museum. While we were photographing the DSRV and generally just admiring her, we were approached by gentleman that claimed to have been assigned to her detail back in the day. He was a retired EOD diver and was just down to visit her and to enjoy the 4th of July festivities later that evening. Turns out that the DSRV was there waiting for a museum to house her in Morro Bay had been built. He had already volunteered his services as a Docent for the Avalon once things were ready. We had a very good and cordial conversation with him before thanking him for his service and continuing on with our tour of Morro Bay's harbor area.
It's a very picturesque village with plenty of pier space and moorings for pleasure craft. There were quite a few people just strolling about the harbor road, most heading toward the public park at the far end of the waterfront. Not uncoincidentally, most folks were headed that way because of the park's ideal location to watch the fireworks show which was scheduled to start at 2115. Patriotic flags and other decorations adorned many of the lamp posts lining the streets. The village definitely has a small town, homesy sort of welcoming feel to it, which Rosie and I liked. The harbor area was definitely the heart of the village. Plenty of shops and places to eat. We strolled all the way down and through the park, saw the barge with all of the nights pyrotechnics on it and reversed our way out of the park. The park was filling quickly. There were a couple of food vendors and a band was setting up to play during the evening. Most folks had brought along coolers, blankets and, chairs for picnicking. It was only just 1800 so, we decided to find a place for dinner as we headed back towards our hotel, leisurely enjoy our meal and ideally, watch the fireworks from wherever we chose to eat.
The Waterfront Grill & Bar looked like the perfect place for dinner. They were expecting a lot of reveller's and had limited their menu to just a handful of selections in order to maximize their turnover and ease of service. We were seated in a enclosed patio area facing off to the harbor straits and clear viewing to the fireworks area. We all ordered the fish tacos and enjoyed their beer, wine and water as we just chilled and relaxed. Having said that, there was no way we could loiter for the 3 hours until the fireworks show so, after dinner and drinks, we left and headed back to our hotel at 1945.
By the time we got back to the hotel, the management had set out 4 adirondack chairs and lighted a propane fire between them for any guests that wanted to ward off some of the chill while enjoying the fireworks show - how thoughtful and considerate! We decided to take up the offer and relax outside until the show started. I read my iPad until the appointed time and joined Rosie and Conor outside just prior to the start of the show. Right at 2115 the firework show started! It lasted a long 15mins and we got a fantastic viewing by standing out in the road fronting the hotel. Really nicely done. Over at 2130, we called it a day and retired back into our room the Blue Butterfly.
What a surprisingly awesome day!
July 4, 2012
Well, had a very rocky night. I was up multiple times with tons of gas and the feeling/need to spend time on the porcelain throne. We've got a long day in front of us, at least we believe so. Didn't know it at the time but, we'd end up driving about 100miles down PCH on this day.
Anyway, all of us were up by 0630 and started to pack the up for the day. Made a stop at the Lodge to pick up the odd souvenir and get a recommendation for breakfast. Rosie discovered while speaking with some of the folks working in the Lodge that there was a nice breakfast spot just down the PCH from the Lodge and that's where we decided to eventually have breakfast.
Left the lodge at 0730 and drove south on PCH no more than a couple of miles to the Big Sur Bakery for continental breakfast. The Bakery is located next to a General Store to it's north and adjacent to a noveau art gallery with a large variety of cacti plants and interesting art strewn about the property. Just in front of the Bakery was a tiny gas station with Shell badging that stated this was the last gas stop for 40miles... not that far. Still, they were charging over $5.00/gallon for fuel! Ahh, I was getting abit low on fuel but, not low enough to by any fuel here! My guess is that their primary customer base would be 2 to 3 wheeled. As you enter the brown wood building, you can smell the recently baked goods and coffee, delicious. We all ordered some type of coffee and pastries. I chose a natural cherry pastry and ham & cheese croissant. Quite good. After our breakfast we drove back to our cottage, packed the SUV, checked out of the Lodge and were back on PCH at 0830 heading back north to visit some of the more touristy areas to see what those places had to offer. We'd definitely be happy to return to Pheiffer Big Sur State Park!
We had passed this clustering of gift shops, places to eat and Inn, the day before while heading up to the Lodge. Had some interesting shops and we only spent about 15mins just wandering around. I picked up a fairly detailed map of the coastline from Monterey down to Vandenburg Air Force Base. Having it would definitely help us throughout the day.
Finally back on the road south by 0900 and we didn't have to travel long before we encountered, Nepenthe's! Only about 3miles from the Lodge on PCH. It has a terrific gift shop called Phoenix, a cafe, a bar and restaurant located right off of PCH on a cliff with spectacular views down to the Pacific. The restaurant was situated on the 3rd level on top of all of the other venues. We could see the water but, not very well due to the overcast and mist of the morning. In retropect, had we known of Nepenthe's existence earlier, we'd probably have waited to sit for breakfast until we got here. Oh well, maybe next time. Anyway, the cafe, on the 2nd level stacked just above the gift shop, was open for breakfast but, the restaurant was still closed and wouldn't open until 1130 (by the time we got to Nepenthe's and finished browsing the gift shop, it was 1045). So, on with our journey!
Rosie actually had an interim natural wonder she wanted us to see just about 10 miles down the road from Nepenthe's: McWay Falls in Julia Pheiffer Burns State Park. It was at this location back in the early '80s that a landslide took out a big chunk of the PCH but, obviously, was eventually repaired. Took over a year to rebuild and the landslide changed the shape of the inlet adjacent to the falls.
As you approach the falls, PCH curves to the left. Just before the curve in the road we noticed quite a few vehicles parked on the side of the road and then noticed the sign for parking on the left and turned in. Parking was free. There's a short ~1/2 walk which leads you from the parking lot along a dirt path and through a short tunnel underneath the PCH. As you emerge at the other end, signs point to the right to continue on to the observation point and the foundation remnants of Julia Pfeiffer's home that was demolished by the State Park service as mandated by her will. There are opportunites all along the cliff edge path to take fantastic shots of the cove, beach, ocean and, the actual reason for our visit: the waterfall cascading down onto the beach. It's really quite a serene location with amazing vistas of McWay Falls, the coastline and, ocean. I was a bit saddened that the home that used to stand at the observation point overlooking all of this fabulous scenery including palm trees - that felt out of place but, cool - had been taken down years back in line with the last wishes of it's former owners. It could have generated a ton of visitation revenue which could have been used for maintenance and/or repairs.
Left the Park and meandered our way much further south through all of the various parks along the way to Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery just north of San Simeon, W.R. Hearst State Park and Hearst Castle. It's a protected sanctuary for elephant seals to calf babies. The last time we visited it was much cooler and I don't recall anyone else in the parking lot to stare at the elephant seals. This time the place was packed with people and a handful of Docent's to answer questions visitors had. They also had a small table holding a small number of items for purchase, one of which was a hat that I bought for $15 to support the rookery. We spend a good deal of time photographing and filming all of the seals on the beach and in the water before needing to leave because of Conor's need for a biology break. :-) Before we left, I asked one of the Docent's if there was a good place to eat nearby and she said, yes, Sebastian's in San Simeon. So, on we continued.
It was only 3miles to San Simeon nestled on the W.R. Hearst Memorial State beach at the base of the entrance to Hearst Castle right off of PCH. We pulled off onto Slo San Simeon Road, the only road through the small village of San Simeon and pulled up and parked at Sebastian's. Very cool building. From the parking lot you can easily see Hearst Castle. As you look towards the structure that contains Sebastian's Store and Cafe, you notice that there's outside seating for diners and on this day, there were quite a few. As you enter the building, if you go left there's a wine tasting bar and a handful of tables and chairs for patrons to use. We went right and queued up to place our lunch orders. It's all cash here. While Rosie and I stood in line, Conor went outside and stood in line to use the 1 co-ed restroom in a separate structure adjacent to the outside eating area. He joined us in line shortly thereafter. Rosie and I ordered turkey clubs with avocados while Conor ordered the buffalo chicken salad. I have to say that the club sandwiches we ordered were huge and probably the best I've had. Conor's salad was ginormous and quite spicy. Conor found and squatted at a table for us while we brought the food inside to the seating area near the wine tasting bar.
Fabulous lunch - which we couldn't finish. Instead of heading up to the Hearst Castle Visitor's Center after lunch, we made the short trip to the adjacent state beach, parked and just wandered about taking in the environment and refreshing sea breeze of the day. There were quite a few families and friends having BBQs and picnics at this beach and many visitors strolling out on to the long pier. There were a handful of folks actually fishing. :-) Rosie was entralled because not only were there a handful of pteryldactls on the pier, she was actually able to pet one! Several of the pelicans on the pier had huge fish in their gullets, at least we hoped they were fish, and apparently couldn't swallow them at the moment. We made our way back to the SUV and headed up Hearst Castle road to the Visitor's center. Got there about 1500.
Unfortunately, the next trip up to see/tour the lower levels of the Castle, a 2 1/2 hr tour, wasn't until 1630 so, we decided not to wait and burn that time waiting for the tour. Spent a little time touring the parking lot and taking photos of San Simeon before jumping back in the SUV and continuing our trek south. We agreed to find lodging someplace not too far away and, if we felt like it, could make our way back up to Hearst Castle the following morning for a visit. We drove through the actual town of San Simeon located 3 miles from the state beach passed through and, stopped for $20 worth of expensive Shell gas in the city of Cambria. Regular gas cost $4.40 a gallon!! Conor yelped for gas and found some for much more reasonable prices, $3.85/gallon, further to the south so, we continued on. That place with cheaper gas just happened to be Morro Bay.
Morro Bay, California... what a very pleasant surprise! The first thing you notice while driving south on PCH as you near the city is the enormous solitary rock that rises out of the sea fronting Morro Bay and helping to form it's harbor. Turns out Morro Bay is one of the last fishing villages, home to one of the last fishing fleets in California. Conor took one of the exits leading into Morro Bay and pulled into a Mobil gas station so that I could refill the SUV. While we were refueling, Rosie yelped places to stay, found some and called up a place very near where we had exited: the Beach Bungaloo Inn & Suites for ~$229/night - we took it! Apparently, someone had recently canceled and they had an opening. Excellent choice! Our lodging had 2 separate bedrooms for the 3 of us and, was positioned only blocks up from the fishing harbor, easy walking distance for us.
We made short work of unloading the SUV into our room, the Blue Butterfly, strapped on a few light back packs and, with cameras in hand, headed out and down to the harbor. Time was ~1630.
One of the first things Conor and I noticed when we got down to the harbor, was the cool and familiar sight of a DSRV just mounted on a mobile frame in a parking lot by a small row of shops with a power station towering above it in the background... we made our way over to it. Turns out this was the DSRV-2, 'Avalon', 1 of 2 Mystic class DSRVs developed and built by Lockheed for the U.S. Navy, specifically for Deep Sea Recovery after the USS Thresher, SSN-593, disaster. How cool was that? Finding a DSRV just sitting around the fishing village of Morro Bay! At 50' long, she was designed to be air transportable and was rated at 1500m (5,000ft) diving depth and could recover up to 24 submariners at a time should she need to. During her 29 year career, she was stationed at Naval Air Station, North Island in San Diego. Commissioned in 1971 she was decommissioned in 2000. Her sister ship, Mystic, is somewhere out East also decommissioned and awaiting life in a museum. While we were photographing the DSRV and generally just admiring her, we were approached by gentleman that claimed to have been assigned to her detail back in the day. He was a retired EOD diver and was just down to visit her and to enjoy the 4th of July festivities later that evening. Turns out that the DSRV was there waiting for a museum to house her in Morro Bay had been built. He had already volunteered his services as a Docent for the Avalon once things were ready. We had a very good and cordial conversation with him before thanking him for his service and continuing on with our tour of Morro Bay's harbor area.
It's a very picturesque village with plenty of pier space and moorings for pleasure craft. There were quite a few people just strolling about the harbor road, most heading toward the public park at the far end of the waterfront. Not uncoincidentally, most folks were headed that way because of the park's ideal location to watch the fireworks show which was scheduled to start at 2115. Patriotic flags and other decorations adorned many of the lamp posts lining the streets. The village definitely has a small town, homesy sort of welcoming feel to it, which Rosie and I liked. The harbor area was definitely the heart of the village. Plenty of shops and places to eat. We strolled all the way down and through the park, saw the barge with all of the nights pyrotechnics on it and reversed our way out of the park. The park was filling quickly. There were a couple of food vendors and a band was setting up to play during the evening. Most folks had brought along coolers, blankets and, chairs for picnicking. It was only just 1800 so, we decided to find a place for dinner as we headed back towards our hotel, leisurely enjoy our meal and ideally, watch the fireworks from wherever we chose to eat.
The Waterfront Grill & Bar looked like the perfect place for dinner. They were expecting a lot of reveller's and had limited their menu to just a handful of selections in order to maximize their turnover and ease of service. We were seated in a enclosed patio area facing off to the harbor straits and clear viewing to the fireworks area. We all ordered the fish tacos and enjoyed their beer, wine and water as we just chilled and relaxed. Having said that, there was no way we could loiter for the 3 hours until the fireworks show so, after dinner and drinks, we left and headed back to our hotel at 1945.
By the time we got back to the hotel, the management had set out 4 adirondack chairs and lighted a propane fire between them for any guests that wanted to ward off some of the chill while enjoying the fireworks show - how thoughtful and considerate! We decided to take up the offer and relax outside until the show started. I read my iPad until the appointed time and joined Rosie and Conor outside just prior to the start of the show. Right at 2115 the firework show started! It lasted a long 15mins and we got a fantastic viewing by standing out in the road fronting the hotel. Really nicely done. Over at 2130, we called it a day and retired back into our room the Blue Butterfly.
What a surprisingly awesome day!
Day 5: Monterey to Big Sur
Still not quite on west coast time... up at 0500, couldn't sleep. What a great day we had yesterday! Our plan for this 5th day of our adventure is to eventually make it down to Big Sur and the Lodge there via 'Carmel by the Sea' and, do whatever else we feel like en route.
I was showered, shaved and dressed before either Rose or Conor had stirred. Haven't been able to quite put work away yet. Logged on to my work laptop and took care of some expense reports. Shut down soon after that and jumped back on my laptop in order to parse through the plethora of photos we took yesterday. I still can't believe the luck we had yesterday morning with the humpback that breached in front of me! Feels like it was all a dream... one I'm glad I had. :-)
Rosie was up next and we were out the door by 0645 with a load of laundry, just need to find a place to do it. On the way to find the laundromat, we stopped and ran into the Starbucks at the corner of main street Cannery Row and Prescott Ave. Had quite a few folks already enjoying beverages and free internet including an Army Officer working on his laptop. Purchased our standard Starbucks orders: a tall, non-fat latte and a triple grande, non-fat latte and, departed the coffee shop to go do laundry
We went looking for a place called, 'Suds Cyber Laundromatt'. Was purportedly less than 1/2 a mile from our hotel. We made 2 loops around where we thought it should be before pulling over to have Rosie run in to a dry cleaner to ask where the laundromat was. Turns out we were very close to the laundromat. We'd passed it twice on Lighthouse Avenue looking for it but, missed it because of it's narrow frontage and change in name to: "Wash-Dry... Self-Service, of Monterey Bay Laundry Co." The laundromat isn't that wide but pretty deep. It's been years since either of us had been in one to do laundry but, we couldn't pass up the opportunity on this day with Big Sur so near, ~30miles away.
Overall, for us to do a wash and dry, took about 1hr, 15min and cost $3.50. In reality it only cost us $3.00 since I found a John F. Kennedy 50 cent piece on top of one of the washers! :-) We got our coinage right out of a change machine in the laundromat. We whiled away the time by reading paper and my iPad. One of the cool things about laundromats is that when you pull your clothing out of the dryers, there's a place to fold everything. Got back to the hotel by 0830.
By the time we packed up, had some chow in the lobby, checked out of the hotel and loaded up the SUV, it was 1015. Conor's turn to drive on this day. Didn't take us long to get to Carmel. We found main street and parked. The city is laid out on a long slope down to the water, like many cities by the sea. Our parking spot was about 1/4mile up from the beach and we took a very leisurely stroll down to the beach admiring the shops and homes lining Carmel's main drag. Another cool day but the weather looks like it will eventually clear.
Made a quick biology pit stop at the public restrooms before taking some photos on a gigantic piece of drift wood near the entrance to Carmel's wide, white beach. All of us took off our shoes in order to make our way down to the beach... a bit of a downhill stroll to the flat of the beach. Lots of folks had their dogs out and they were having a blast chasing each other around or just walking their owners. It was all Rosie could do not to introduce herself to all of the canines on the beach. The beach is actually quite wide and very clean. Even this early in the morning with more than just light winds, there were people out on beach chairs just enjoying the day. The water of the Pacific is quite cold - based on the empirical testing we were doing with our feet. Still, there were quite a few hardy soles swimming and even more in wet suits surfing.
Spent a pleasant 1/2hr strolling the beach before we headed back up to city center Carmel... it's all uphill! Along the way we picked up some souvenirs before reaching our SUV and departing Carmel by-the-Sea at 1145. Didn't know it at the time but, once we got back on PCH, we only drove for about 15mins before we ran into Point Lobos State Reserve. We couldn't park in the reserve because all the parking was taken and the line at the Ranger's shack was just sitting there until a car would leave. So, Conor found us parking right along northbound PCH. We piled out with our camera gear, crossed over the highway and made our way to the Ranger's shack at the entrance. Found the trail marker and headed out.
The coastal and ocean scenery of Point Lobos is spectacular! The low level fog and mist had cleared by now and the skies were azure blue with a few puffy clouds and, a light wind. We chose a trail that quickly got us to the water and then some. We hiked, photoed and enjoyed for about 1 hr before heading back to our ride and continuing our journey south on the PCH.
One thing we just haven't been able to do since we arrived is get on a normal lunch schedule. We've consistently eaten very late in the afternoon and it's impacted the types and times of the dinners we've enjoyed. On this particular day, we discovered the Rock Point Restaurant right at 1330 nestled along PCH at the base of the Big Sur range with amazing views to the ocean and surrounding coast. If you're driving too fast it would be very easy to miss. We exited to the right and carefully drove the couple hundred yards on their narrow, barely 2 lane road down to the restaurant's parking area. There were already a handful of patrons sitting outside enjoying the weather, drinks and food. We decided to sit inside by the wrap around window overlooking the sloping land down to the water. Rock Point is only about 15miles from our destination, Big Sur Lodge.
After enjoying our meals of: club sandwich, chicken enchiladas and hamburger (can you guess who ate what? :-) ), we departed Rock Point at ~1445. It's quite the scenic ride along the coast until you finally move inland a bit and get immersed in the huge Sequoia Redwoods. Not a whole lot going on en route to Big Sur. There are a few Inns, places to eat and souvenir shops just before you reach the entrance to Big Sur Lodge but, not much else... not to mention limited to no reception for phones and internet! We finally pulled up to the Lodge check-in/restaurant/gift shop at 1515.
They were ready for us and we were able to check-in right then. They gave us a couple of briefing and passed over a handful of brochures that helped us understand the Lodge and Park's rules and regulations. We also had a basic map of all the hiking trails. We'd been assigned cottage #53. Jumped back in the SUV and made the short drive back to our cottage. Workers of the Lodge and Park get around primarily by golf cart. We parked right in front of our door and unloaded our gear into our rustic cottage room.
Nothing particularly 'shiny' about our room. No A/C but there was a heater. We were told that evenings could get quite cool. We basically had a large shared room with 2 beds, a head with shower and an outdoor patio/porch with a couple of chairs. With our hectic schedule we wouldn't be able to enjoy everything about the Big Sur Lodge but, we did as much as we could in the short amount of time we had.
This was the first day I stopped paying attention to work! Mostly because there wasn't any signal of any type to connect to - a very good thing. Rosie and I decided right then and there that we'd definitely come back for another stay given the opportunity. :-)
Once we got settled in our cottage, we discussed our game plan and objectives for the rest of the day. There were quite a few hiking trails of different lengths and difficulties nearby. Conor, feeling like he needed the exercise, wanted to challenge himself with a long hike up into the Big Sur woods along the 8mile round trip Mt. Manuel trail. Rosie and I were not quite as ambitious and decided to do the much shorter 2mile round trip Valley View and Pfeiffer Falls trail. Jumped back into our SUV and drove Conor the .75miles to the start of his trail, the most challenging one in this park. He'll hike his way back to the cottage.We then drove back past the Lodge and our cabin area to a small parking area near the start of our trail.
The redwoods are HUGE and Rosie had the obligatory 'tree hugging' moments or two along the way. :-) Although our trail was billed as only '2 miles', it was nearly all uphill... steeply up hill! I'm not sure how high up we eventually achieved at the Valley View lookout point but, it was definitely challenging and thank goodness for 'switch backs' all the way up. At Valley View point on this day, you could see the Pacific Ocean way out in the distance, parts of other campsites and parts of PCH winding it's way through the forested mountains. Was quite hot, no shade with only a slight breeze - which made a big difference in feel - and we were happy to take pause on the 1 bench at our objective as we took photos and sweated. On the hike up you eventually get to a fork: the left fork takes you up to Valley View and the right fork, we discovered later, takes you back down to the falls.
Left Valley View point and had a much easier trip, down hill, to go see Pfeiffer Falls. The falls were a bit underwhelming particularly since there hadn't been much rain recently but, still cool. The not so fun part was climbing back up to the fork in the trail via a series of switchbacks so that we could make our way back down to the parking area. We pasted a handful of intrepid hikers and a family of hikers with 3 small children on our way back down. Our afternoon hike in the Big Sur woods took us 1+15. Time was 1740 when we got back in the SUV. We were dusty, sweaty and parched. Decided to go straight down to the lodge and enjoy some cold beverages before heading back to the cottage to get cleaned up. We assumed that Conor would still be climbing his own trail and wouldn't be finished for another several hours.
Parked by the lodge, went in and asked to be seated - just for drinks - back on their patio overlooking the stream, Pfeiffer Stream, that flowed through this particular valley down to the ocean. To get to the patio, you pass through the lounge area, coffee/ice cream bar and, through the restaurant proper. It was pleasantly cool and shaded out on the deck. Being so early, there was no one else out on the patio with us except for our server, Stephanie. We both enjoyed getting to chat with and know a bit about Stephanie during our short respite. Turns out she lived in Monterey and commuted down to Big Sir Lodge daily to work. On her recommendation I discovered and quite enjoyed an IPA wheat beer called, 'Shock Top'... was excellent! Rosie enjoyed a very nice Pinot Noir. We spent over an hour relaxing and enjoying our beverages. We were deciding on our options for dinner and due to our experience with Stephanie, decided to go back to the cottage, wait on Conor and then return to the Lodge for dinner.
Got back to the cottage at 1915 expecting Conor not to be there and, discovered that Conor had been there for awhile! Turns out that his trail had been washed out way before he had a chance to get near the summit so, he turned around and back tracked his way past the Lodge, where we were drinking, to our cottage. He'd been there since ~ 1815. Of course, instead of feeling too sorry, we chided him for not stopping in to the Lodge before heading back to the cottage to join us for a drink. He had tried calling us but, we hadn't brought along our phones to have known that. :-)
After Rosie and I had showered and changed, jumped into the SUV for the short ride down to the Lodge for dinner. We were hoping to have Stephanie for our server but, she was only able to seat us and turn us over to another server right at 1945. Enjoyed a cocktail before ordering some appetizers and our entrees. The beer and wine was good, appetizers great but - and this is the only complaint we had with Big Sur Lodge - our dinners took over 1 hr to get to us!! We were served at 2100! Conor and I had the pot roast, which was quite average and felt store bought, not fresh made. Rosie had ordered the eggplant dish, which was served up cold and inedible because it had not been cooked through! Very disappointing. Stephanie made sure our meals were comped, was the right thing to do, and had the manager come out to listen to our feedback. He seemed genuinely concerned and apologized gracefully and asked if I'd mind providing written feedback, I didn't mind and did. Apparently, they had just hired a new cook (he certainly wasn't a chef) and he was good with the easier dishes but completely missed on our meals. On a positive note, our service was well above average and included those comments in my feedback too.
Dinner at Big Sur Lodge has been the only disappointment of our trip to date.
Headed back to our cottage at 2130. Rosie and I had had quite a few drinks on this day, half of which were free due to Stephanie and we tipped her big for her efforts, and were very happy to hit the rack soon after we got back to the cottage. We slept with the front window and rear sliding doors open. Both had screens to keep out bugs. Pretty sure I heard no bears that night.
Another gorgeous day!
I was showered, shaved and dressed before either Rose or Conor had stirred. Haven't been able to quite put work away yet. Logged on to my work laptop and took care of some expense reports. Shut down soon after that and jumped back on my laptop in order to parse through the plethora of photos we took yesterday. I still can't believe the luck we had yesterday morning with the humpback that breached in front of me! Feels like it was all a dream... one I'm glad I had. :-)
Rosie was up next and we were out the door by 0645 with a load of laundry, just need to find a place to do it. On the way to find the laundromat, we stopped and ran into the Starbucks at the corner of main street Cannery Row and Prescott Ave. Had quite a few folks already enjoying beverages and free internet including an Army Officer working on his laptop. Purchased our standard Starbucks orders: a tall, non-fat latte and a triple grande, non-fat latte and, departed the coffee shop to go do laundry
We went looking for a place called, 'Suds Cyber Laundromatt'. Was purportedly less than 1/2 a mile from our hotel. We made 2 loops around where we thought it should be before pulling over to have Rosie run in to a dry cleaner to ask where the laundromat was. Turns out we were very close to the laundromat. We'd passed it twice on Lighthouse Avenue looking for it but, missed it because of it's narrow frontage and change in name to: "Wash-Dry... Self-Service, of Monterey Bay Laundry Co." The laundromat isn't that wide but pretty deep. It's been years since either of us had been in one to do laundry but, we couldn't pass up the opportunity on this day with Big Sur so near, ~30miles away.
Overall, for us to do a wash and dry, took about 1hr, 15min and cost $3.50. In reality it only cost us $3.00 since I found a John F. Kennedy 50 cent piece on top of one of the washers! :-) We got our coinage right out of a change machine in the laundromat. We whiled away the time by reading paper and my iPad. One of the cool things about laundromats is that when you pull your clothing out of the dryers, there's a place to fold everything. Got back to the hotel by 0830.
By the time we packed up, had some chow in the lobby, checked out of the hotel and loaded up the SUV, it was 1015. Conor's turn to drive on this day. Didn't take us long to get to Carmel. We found main street and parked. The city is laid out on a long slope down to the water, like many cities by the sea. Our parking spot was about 1/4mile up from the beach and we took a very leisurely stroll down to the beach admiring the shops and homes lining Carmel's main drag. Another cool day but the weather looks like it will eventually clear.
Made a quick biology pit stop at the public restrooms before taking some photos on a gigantic piece of drift wood near the entrance to Carmel's wide, white beach. All of us took off our shoes in order to make our way down to the beach... a bit of a downhill stroll to the flat of the beach. Lots of folks had their dogs out and they were having a blast chasing each other around or just walking their owners. It was all Rosie could do not to introduce herself to all of the canines on the beach. The beach is actually quite wide and very clean. Even this early in the morning with more than just light winds, there were people out on beach chairs just enjoying the day. The water of the Pacific is quite cold - based on the empirical testing we were doing with our feet. Still, there were quite a few hardy soles swimming and even more in wet suits surfing.
Spent a pleasant 1/2hr strolling the beach before we headed back up to city center Carmel... it's all uphill! Along the way we picked up some souvenirs before reaching our SUV and departing Carmel by-the-Sea at 1145. Didn't know it at the time but, once we got back on PCH, we only drove for about 15mins before we ran into Point Lobos State Reserve. We couldn't park in the reserve because all the parking was taken and the line at the Ranger's shack was just sitting there until a car would leave. So, Conor found us parking right along northbound PCH. We piled out with our camera gear, crossed over the highway and made our way to the Ranger's shack at the entrance. Found the trail marker and headed out.
The coastal and ocean scenery of Point Lobos is spectacular! The low level fog and mist had cleared by now and the skies were azure blue with a few puffy clouds and, a light wind. We chose a trail that quickly got us to the water and then some. We hiked, photoed and enjoyed for about 1 hr before heading back to our ride and continuing our journey south on the PCH.
One thing we just haven't been able to do since we arrived is get on a normal lunch schedule. We've consistently eaten very late in the afternoon and it's impacted the types and times of the dinners we've enjoyed. On this particular day, we discovered the Rock Point Restaurant right at 1330 nestled along PCH at the base of the Big Sur range with amazing views to the ocean and surrounding coast. If you're driving too fast it would be very easy to miss. We exited to the right and carefully drove the couple hundred yards on their narrow, barely 2 lane road down to the restaurant's parking area. There were already a handful of patrons sitting outside enjoying the weather, drinks and food. We decided to sit inside by the wrap around window overlooking the sloping land down to the water. Rock Point is only about 15miles from our destination, Big Sur Lodge.
After enjoying our meals of: club sandwich, chicken enchiladas and hamburger (can you guess who ate what? :-) ), we departed Rock Point at ~1445. It's quite the scenic ride along the coast until you finally move inland a bit and get immersed in the huge Sequoia Redwoods. Not a whole lot going on en route to Big Sur. There are a few Inns, places to eat and souvenir shops just before you reach the entrance to Big Sur Lodge but, not much else... not to mention limited to no reception for phones and internet! We finally pulled up to the Lodge check-in/restaurant/gift shop at 1515.
They were ready for us and we were able to check-in right then. They gave us a couple of briefing and passed over a handful of brochures that helped us understand the Lodge and Park's rules and regulations. We also had a basic map of all the hiking trails. We'd been assigned cottage #53. Jumped back in the SUV and made the short drive back to our cottage. Workers of the Lodge and Park get around primarily by golf cart. We parked right in front of our door and unloaded our gear into our rustic cottage room.
Nothing particularly 'shiny' about our room. No A/C but there was a heater. We were told that evenings could get quite cool. We basically had a large shared room with 2 beds, a head with shower and an outdoor patio/porch with a couple of chairs. With our hectic schedule we wouldn't be able to enjoy everything about the Big Sur Lodge but, we did as much as we could in the short amount of time we had.
This was the first day I stopped paying attention to work! Mostly because there wasn't any signal of any type to connect to - a very good thing. Rosie and I decided right then and there that we'd definitely come back for another stay given the opportunity. :-)
Once we got settled in our cottage, we discussed our game plan and objectives for the rest of the day. There were quite a few hiking trails of different lengths and difficulties nearby. Conor, feeling like he needed the exercise, wanted to challenge himself with a long hike up into the Big Sur woods along the 8mile round trip Mt. Manuel trail. Rosie and I were not quite as ambitious and decided to do the much shorter 2mile round trip Valley View and Pfeiffer Falls trail. Jumped back into our SUV and drove Conor the .75miles to the start of his trail, the most challenging one in this park. He'll hike his way back to the cottage.We then drove back past the Lodge and our cabin area to a small parking area near the start of our trail.
The redwoods are HUGE and Rosie had the obligatory 'tree hugging' moments or two along the way. :-) Although our trail was billed as only '2 miles', it was nearly all uphill... steeply up hill! I'm not sure how high up we eventually achieved at the Valley View lookout point but, it was definitely challenging and thank goodness for 'switch backs' all the way up. At Valley View point on this day, you could see the Pacific Ocean way out in the distance, parts of other campsites and parts of PCH winding it's way through the forested mountains. Was quite hot, no shade with only a slight breeze - which made a big difference in feel - and we were happy to take pause on the 1 bench at our objective as we took photos and sweated. On the hike up you eventually get to a fork: the left fork takes you up to Valley View and the right fork, we discovered later, takes you back down to the falls.
Left Valley View point and had a much easier trip, down hill, to go see Pfeiffer Falls. The falls were a bit underwhelming particularly since there hadn't been much rain recently but, still cool. The not so fun part was climbing back up to the fork in the trail via a series of switchbacks so that we could make our way back down to the parking area. We pasted a handful of intrepid hikers and a family of hikers with 3 small children on our way back down. Our afternoon hike in the Big Sur woods took us 1+15. Time was 1740 when we got back in the SUV. We were dusty, sweaty and parched. Decided to go straight down to the lodge and enjoy some cold beverages before heading back to the cottage to get cleaned up. We assumed that Conor would still be climbing his own trail and wouldn't be finished for another several hours.
Parked by the lodge, went in and asked to be seated - just for drinks - back on their patio overlooking the stream, Pfeiffer Stream, that flowed through this particular valley down to the ocean. To get to the patio, you pass through the lounge area, coffee/ice cream bar and, through the restaurant proper. It was pleasantly cool and shaded out on the deck. Being so early, there was no one else out on the patio with us except for our server, Stephanie. We both enjoyed getting to chat with and know a bit about Stephanie during our short respite. Turns out she lived in Monterey and commuted down to Big Sir Lodge daily to work. On her recommendation I discovered and quite enjoyed an IPA wheat beer called, 'Shock Top'... was excellent! Rosie enjoyed a very nice Pinot Noir. We spent over an hour relaxing and enjoying our beverages. We were deciding on our options for dinner and due to our experience with Stephanie, decided to go back to the cottage, wait on Conor and then return to the Lodge for dinner.
Got back to the cottage at 1915 expecting Conor not to be there and, discovered that Conor had been there for awhile! Turns out that his trail had been washed out way before he had a chance to get near the summit so, he turned around and back tracked his way past the Lodge, where we were drinking, to our cottage. He'd been there since ~ 1815. Of course, instead of feeling too sorry, we chided him for not stopping in to the Lodge before heading back to the cottage to join us for a drink. He had tried calling us but, we hadn't brought along our phones to have known that. :-)
After Rosie and I had showered and changed, jumped into the SUV for the short ride down to the Lodge for dinner. We were hoping to have Stephanie for our server but, she was only able to seat us and turn us over to another server right at 1945. Enjoyed a cocktail before ordering some appetizers and our entrees. The beer and wine was good, appetizers great but - and this is the only complaint we had with Big Sur Lodge - our dinners took over 1 hr to get to us!! We were served at 2100! Conor and I had the pot roast, which was quite average and felt store bought, not fresh made. Rosie had ordered the eggplant dish, which was served up cold and inedible because it had not been cooked through! Very disappointing. Stephanie made sure our meals were comped, was the right thing to do, and had the manager come out to listen to our feedback. He seemed genuinely concerned and apologized gracefully and asked if I'd mind providing written feedback, I didn't mind and did. Apparently, they had just hired a new cook (he certainly wasn't a chef) and he was good with the easier dishes but completely missed on our meals. On a positive note, our service was well above average and included those comments in my feedback too.
Dinner at Big Sur Lodge has been the only disappointment of our trip to date.
Headed back to our cottage at 2130. Rosie and I had had quite a few drinks on this day, half of which were free due to Stephanie and we tipped her big for her efforts, and were very happy to hit the rack soon after we got back to the cottage. We slept with the front window and rear sliding doors open. Both had screens to keep out bugs. Pretty sure I heard no bears that night.
Another gorgeous day!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Day 4: Monterey, CA
It's Monday, July 2nd, and it's 0600 here in the Holiday Inn Express in Monterey. Not quite in vacation mode yet but, getting there. There were a lot of good things about the Fairmont in San Francisco. First and foremost, the beds in our room there. Exceptionally comfortable and did not hurt my back. The bed here in the Holiday Inn isn't bad, just not nearly as good as the Fairmonts.
OK, on with the days blog... was a memorable day and was able to take another item off of my bucket list - whale watching!
While Rosie and Conor leisurely awoke, I went down to the lobby for a hot breakfast at 0630. Pretty good spread for a Holiday Inn. Hot, cold, juices, fruits, pastries... all good. Took some bananas back up to the room for my 2 traveling partners and before heading back down to finish their breakfasts, Rosie dialed up the Monterey Bay Whale Watch Company (MBWWC) and booked 3 spots on their 0900, 4hr trip to go chase leviathans!
After breakfast we loaded up in the SUV with all of our camera gear and drove out to Old Fisherman's Wharf. Wasn't that far a drive, maybe 5mins. We'd considered walking but, would have taken too long as we were cutting it a bit close timing wise. I'd gotten some directions from the lady who took our reservations but, being unfamiliar with the area, those directions weren't very precise. Eventually found parking in a garage for $7/day just off Washington Street and we hoofed it across several busy roads over into the Wharf's parking lot area and onto the pier. A good stretch of the leg.
Fortunately, there were other small families all 'quick' walking onto the pier in search of the 2 or 3 excursion companies heading out at 0900 to find whales. As we walked out to the end of the pier past most commercial establishments still closed at this time of the morning, we found our charter on the right (starboard side to sailors) side of the pier and the medium sized shed where business was conducted. We were last in to buy and pick up our tickets. Can't remember exactly what we paid - most any amount would have been fine for the opportunity to see/photo whales - but, since I was former military, they gave us $3 off each ticket! Very good of them.
The weather on this particular day was very misty, overcast and cool. Rosie and I weren't quite dressed warmly enough so, we purchased a couple of logo'd fleeces from the MBWWC and donned them before leaving the shed. This company appeared to have 2 80-100' sightseeing boats and they were using both of them. Our boat, the Sea Wolf II, had the added attraction of a young chocolate lab, 'Duke', as Captain's mascot! Boarded right at 0900 and pulled away from the pier soon thereafter.
On the way out of the harbor, we leisurely made our way around a variety of floating objects that provided resting places for a myriad of sea life including many harbor seals, saw some sea otters, nesting Cormorants, seagulls and, quite a few flying pterodactyls (pelicans). The weather continued to be gray with a good amount of wind... I'd guess between 10-15kts all day long. The seas were far from flat. On the way out to the viewing areas, 5-10 miles out into the bay, there was plenty of wave action. I'd guess at 4'-6' seas contributing some fairly big rollers... our saving grace was that the waves had long periods and made for a rolling action that was mostly tolerable. 'Course, we had quite a few passengers on board that were not enjoying the rolling and pitching of the boat. There were quite a few fishing boats out on the water. I was surprised at how daring some of the owners of some of the smaller fishing vessels were. The seas were high enough that those same ships would literally disappear in the troughs of the waves! Looked cool.
I was initially doubtful that we would see any whales but, it wasn't long before the deck house announced that they saw water spouts in the distance and we headed towards the tell tails! The crew throughout the day would work hard to keep one side of the boat or the other facing the direction of the whales. Our first whale encounters were with the big blues! Can't really describe exactly how cool, exciting and surreal the experience of whale watching was. Some of the excitement and ambiance was dampened by the weather and both Conor and I were concerned with Rosie because she spend most of the time sitting aft trying to maintain a modicum of dignity as she fought sea sickness... bless her heart! After the trip, she told us she believed things started going badly for her equilibrium when she was trying to video tape the whales while the boat was pitching, rolling and heaving all over the place early on.
It's a good thing we're in a digital world now-a-days because for every good shot of a whale's anything, I took 10-20 photos of disturbed water! One really needs x-ray vision to predict where the whale's will surface at any time. The blue whales had a pretty good 'tell' just prior to surfacing to eat, breathe and dive... more often than not, you'd see a bubbly disturbance in the water to an abnormal number of sea birds loitering in a particular area. Still, most of the blue whale photos we got were of their dorsal area and tails. A lucky few photos were of their huge mouths gaping open as they sucked in tons of krill laced gallons of water expelling that water through their baleen to capture and then swallow their favorite food. There were also a few opportunities to observe the blues laying out on their sides and flapping their flippers in the air... can't remember what cetacean biologists called that behavior? Magnificent beasts!
After a good amount of time admiring the blues, we headed off to find some humpbacks and find them we did! Turns out that humpbacks on this day were much more demonstrative than their blue cousins. As we were heading towards different pods of the humpbacks, we saw observed several occasions where a humpback would launch, 'breach', itself completely out of the water and crash back down into the water creating a huge splash very similar to any of us doing a belly flop in a pool. An amazing feat particularly for a mammal as large as a whale! I saw 2 of these events in the far distance only because I happened to be looking that way. Most of our fellow whale watchers were crowded up on the bow of the Sea Wolf II and depending on which side the Captain tried to keep the whales off to, most of the rest of our group would gather of the port or starboard side of the boat.
The once in a lifetime photo op moment for me came while I was leaning up against the rail on the port side of the bow with Conor bracing me with this own body to help stabilize me and keep me from getting pitched over the side or onto my rear. At the slow speeds we were moving the heave and pitch to the ship was significant. Anyway, we had moved closer to a couple of the humpbacks in the area and they had submerged. I was looking towards forward in the vicinity of the port quarter with my Canon T2i fitted with my zoom lens held about chest high. I noticed a disturbance on the water not to far away and as I moved the camera view finder to my eye, a 40 ton humpback started to breach! I depressed the shutter button and kept my finger down (I was in sport mode) and got the most amazing series of 5 photos I've ever been lucky enough to capture in pretty high quality resolution. It was incredible! My surprise over the event and suddenness of it nearly overwhelmed me with emotion. I was stunned, giddy and speechless and could not believe my good fortune! I was done with caring about shooting any more photos. :-) After that anything else we went to see was quite anti-climactic including a school of Risso's dolphins.
Risso dolphins look motley gray and scarred. Aside from their color, the size of their dorsal fins also distinguishes them from other dolphins, possessing the largest dorsal fins on any dolphin. Chased those around for a bit before heading back in to the harbor. Rosie was more than ready to get back in. Because she refused to move from her position back aft, she was quite chilled. On the way back in, we were surprised by a pelican who landed right amongst the folks sitting back aft right near Rosie! We all speculated that it was quite tired and undernourished. It rode with us back into the harbor where the crew released it back into the water. We also made a nice pass by Cannery Row and the Monterey Aquarium. Was nice being able to see everything from the sea.
We docked back at the Fisherman's Wharf right at 1300, tipped the crew and, disembarked with a thoroughly chilled Rosie. She told Conor and I that she was still quite pleased to have experienced this event and proud of the fact that she did not hurl! We rushed her to the nearest restaurant we could find, which happened to be right next to the MBWWC's shed, Isabella's Italian Seafood & Steak. They wanted to seat us upstairs but, we choose the table right next to the heated fire! Still took most of lunch to get her body temperature back up. Our meals of choice: Conor, chicken parm; Rosie, spaghetti & meatballs; Yours Truly, chicken piccata. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch reliving the whale watching together. Great morning!
Left the restaurant and slowly meandered our way down the wharf poking our heads in here, and there. Found a really cool candy shop and had to go inside. Left with 3 large bags of salt water taffy specifically loaded with flavors of our choice. Continued our walk off of the pier and back to our parking garage. Time was ~1415. Our day was far from over... we decided to head out for the 17 mile drive of Pebble Beach.
Drove to a point closest to our hotel to enter the 17mile drive. If you are a visitor to the Pebble Beach area, you've got to pony up $9.50 to purchase entry. The drive is spectacularly scenic and among other things takes you by several golf courses, including Pebble Beach, along the way. We paused numerous times along the way to take in the sights and enjoy some of the many interesting landmarks peppered along the coast line. Quite the windy day and yet there were plenty of hardy golfers out on the course stroking away. Our last stop was at the famous Pebble Beach Golf Club. We found parking and got out to explore.
If you love golf, Pebble Beach has plenty of vacation packages to accommodate hardcore golf fanatics. We were happy to just wander around the first tee and the putting green - which happened to be adjacent to the Lodge and Tap Room. Decided it would be cool to go into the Tap Room and enjoy some beverages of our choice and dessert. The golfing lifestyle and participants are a very different sort, as different as the boating lifestyle is to those of us that don't frequent those environments and venues. The one thing in common with both is: money... you need alot of it to carouse around at PGA level courses or yacht clubs of the rich & famous. I'm happy to be an occasional interloper to both worlds, most particularly to the boating world and sailing. Still, all-in-all a very pleasant hour spent enjoying delicious desserts and soaking up the ambiance of Pebble Beach! By the way, I enjoyed the Key Lime pie with a 'hot coffee toddy', Conor had an apple crumb something and, Rosie enjoyed a huge coconut cake. We paid our tab and strolled back to the SUV via the high brow shops that lined the putting green.
Left Pebble Beach and the 17mile drive via Hwy 1N back to Monterey. Got back to the hotel and our room by 1730. Still stuff to do so, freshened up some and headed back out to Cannery Row. My own selfish objective was to go mash as many souvenir pennies as I could along the Row... which ended up being about 14 of them at $.51 cents a pop! Love 'em.
Side Note: the morning we were leaving Monterey to Big Sur, Rosie and I decided to do some laundry. Took us a while to find the little laundromat but, we did. Only had 1 load to do and took us just over an hour to wash, dry and fold everything. That's not what this side note is about though... it's the change machines dotted around Cannery Row. We needed quarters to do the laundry so, we went up to one and I put in a $5 bill. I was expecting 20 quarters but instead, it spit out 5 $1 coins! I was quite pleased with that... something I absolutely didn't expect and, no surprise here, I like collecting the $1 coins! We ended up getting quarters at the laundromat. :-)
Anyway, we enjoyed a nice leisurely stroll almost back down to the Aquarium before turning around to head back. We weren't that hungry due to our late lunch and later dessert but, we went looking for a place to sit, relax and have some cocktails. Ended up walking up off the main strip, 1 block, and discovered the Cannery Row Brewing Company. Decided to try our luck... was a great choice! We asked for and got seated outside right next to a burning fire pit (not a real one but one that was gas fed)... key because it was still on the chilly side. Interestingly though, while we were enjoying our time in outside, the weather started to clear and you could clearly see the blue skies above. Our days in California ran long and really didn't go dark until 9 o'clockish.
Rosie and I really enjoyed our time this evening with Conor. We enjoyed some of the CR Brewing Co's micro brews and ordered finger food to snack on. As we started relaxing and opening up our conversations, Conor really had a lot of family questions of us. Both of us were quite surprised at the questions Conor asked of us and the inaccurate understandings he had of some of why our family is the way it is. We were happy to answer all his questions and tell him as many stories about growing up with Conor as we could remember. We spent over 2 very enjoyable hours just chatting and enjoying each others company before we settled up and walked back to our hotel. Got back to the room at ~2130.
What an incredible, amazing day! On to Big Sur tomorrow.
OK, on with the days blog... was a memorable day and was able to take another item off of my bucket list - whale watching!
While Rosie and Conor leisurely awoke, I went down to the lobby for a hot breakfast at 0630. Pretty good spread for a Holiday Inn. Hot, cold, juices, fruits, pastries... all good. Took some bananas back up to the room for my 2 traveling partners and before heading back down to finish their breakfasts, Rosie dialed up the Monterey Bay Whale Watch Company (MBWWC) and booked 3 spots on their 0900, 4hr trip to go chase leviathans!
After breakfast we loaded up in the SUV with all of our camera gear and drove out to Old Fisherman's Wharf. Wasn't that far a drive, maybe 5mins. We'd considered walking but, would have taken too long as we were cutting it a bit close timing wise. I'd gotten some directions from the lady who took our reservations but, being unfamiliar with the area, those directions weren't very precise. Eventually found parking in a garage for $7/day just off Washington Street and we hoofed it across several busy roads over into the Wharf's parking lot area and onto the pier. A good stretch of the leg.
Fortunately, there were other small families all 'quick' walking onto the pier in search of the 2 or 3 excursion companies heading out at 0900 to find whales. As we walked out to the end of the pier past most commercial establishments still closed at this time of the morning, we found our charter on the right (starboard side to sailors) side of the pier and the medium sized shed where business was conducted. We were last in to buy and pick up our tickets. Can't remember exactly what we paid - most any amount would have been fine for the opportunity to see/photo whales - but, since I was former military, they gave us $3 off each ticket! Very good of them.
The weather on this particular day was very misty, overcast and cool. Rosie and I weren't quite dressed warmly enough so, we purchased a couple of logo'd fleeces from the MBWWC and donned them before leaving the shed. This company appeared to have 2 80-100' sightseeing boats and they were using both of them. Our boat, the Sea Wolf II, had the added attraction of a young chocolate lab, 'Duke', as Captain's mascot! Boarded right at 0900 and pulled away from the pier soon thereafter.
On the way out of the harbor, we leisurely made our way around a variety of floating objects that provided resting places for a myriad of sea life including many harbor seals, saw some sea otters, nesting Cormorants, seagulls and, quite a few flying pterodactyls (pelicans). The weather continued to be gray with a good amount of wind... I'd guess between 10-15kts all day long. The seas were far from flat. On the way out to the viewing areas, 5-10 miles out into the bay, there was plenty of wave action. I'd guess at 4'-6' seas contributing some fairly big rollers... our saving grace was that the waves had long periods and made for a rolling action that was mostly tolerable. 'Course, we had quite a few passengers on board that were not enjoying the rolling and pitching of the boat. There were quite a few fishing boats out on the water. I was surprised at how daring some of the owners of some of the smaller fishing vessels were. The seas were high enough that those same ships would literally disappear in the troughs of the waves! Looked cool.
I was initially doubtful that we would see any whales but, it wasn't long before the deck house announced that they saw water spouts in the distance and we headed towards the tell tails! The crew throughout the day would work hard to keep one side of the boat or the other facing the direction of the whales. Our first whale encounters were with the big blues! Can't really describe exactly how cool, exciting and surreal the experience of whale watching was. Some of the excitement and ambiance was dampened by the weather and both Conor and I were concerned with Rosie because she spend most of the time sitting aft trying to maintain a modicum of dignity as she fought sea sickness... bless her heart! After the trip, she told us she believed things started going badly for her equilibrium when she was trying to video tape the whales while the boat was pitching, rolling and heaving all over the place early on.
It's a good thing we're in a digital world now-a-days because for every good shot of a whale's anything, I took 10-20 photos of disturbed water! One really needs x-ray vision to predict where the whale's will surface at any time. The blue whales had a pretty good 'tell' just prior to surfacing to eat, breathe and dive... more often than not, you'd see a bubbly disturbance in the water to an abnormal number of sea birds loitering in a particular area. Still, most of the blue whale photos we got were of their dorsal area and tails. A lucky few photos were of their huge mouths gaping open as they sucked in tons of krill laced gallons of water expelling that water through their baleen to capture and then swallow their favorite food. There were also a few opportunities to observe the blues laying out on their sides and flapping their flippers in the air... can't remember what cetacean biologists called that behavior? Magnificent beasts!
After a good amount of time admiring the blues, we headed off to find some humpbacks and find them we did! Turns out that humpbacks on this day were much more demonstrative than their blue cousins. As we were heading towards different pods of the humpbacks, we saw observed several occasions where a humpback would launch, 'breach', itself completely out of the water and crash back down into the water creating a huge splash very similar to any of us doing a belly flop in a pool. An amazing feat particularly for a mammal as large as a whale! I saw 2 of these events in the far distance only because I happened to be looking that way. Most of our fellow whale watchers were crowded up on the bow of the Sea Wolf II and depending on which side the Captain tried to keep the whales off to, most of the rest of our group would gather of the port or starboard side of the boat.
The once in a lifetime photo op moment for me came while I was leaning up against the rail on the port side of the bow with Conor bracing me with this own body to help stabilize me and keep me from getting pitched over the side or onto my rear. At the slow speeds we were moving the heave and pitch to the ship was significant. Anyway, we had moved closer to a couple of the humpbacks in the area and they had submerged. I was looking towards forward in the vicinity of the port quarter with my Canon T2i fitted with my zoom lens held about chest high. I noticed a disturbance on the water not to far away and as I moved the camera view finder to my eye, a 40 ton humpback started to breach! I depressed the shutter button and kept my finger down (I was in sport mode) and got the most amazing series of 5 photos I've ever been lucky enough to capture in pretty high quality resolution. It was incredible! My surprise over the event and suddenness of it nearly overwhelmed me with emotion. I was stunned, giddy and speechless and could not believe my good fortune! I was done with caring about shooting any more photos. :-) After that anything else we went to see was quite anti-climactic including a school of Risso's dolphins.
Risso dolphins look motley gray and scarred. Aside from their color, the size of their dorsal fins also distinguishes them from other dolphins, possessing the largest dorsal fins on any dolphin. Chased those around for a bit before heading back in to the harbor. Rosie was more than ready to get back in. Because she refused to move from her position back aft, she was quite chilled. On the way back in, we were surprised by a pelican who landed right amongst the folks sitting back aft right near Rosie! We all speculated that it was quite tired and undernourished. It rode with us back into the harbor where the crew released it back into the water. We also made a nice pass by Cannery Row and the Monterey Aquarium. Was nice being able to see everything from the sea.
We docked back at the Fisherman's Wharf right at 1300, tipped the crew and, disembarked with a thoroughly chilled Rosie. She told Conor and I that she was still quite pleased to have experienced this event and proud of the fact that she did not hurl! We rushed her to the nearest restaurant we could find, which happened to be right next to the MBWWC's shed, Isabella's Italian Seafood & Steak. They wanted to seat us upstairs but, we choose the table right next to the heated fire! Still took most of lunch to get her body temperature back up. Our meals of choice: Conor, chicken parm; Rosie, spaghetti & meatballs; Yours Truly, chicken piccata. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch reliving the whale watching together. Great morning!
Left the restaurant and slowly meandered our way down the wharf poking our heads in here, and there. Found a really cool candy shop and had to go inside. Left with 3 large bags of salt water taffy specifically loaded with flavors of our choice. Continued our walk off of the pier and back to our parking garage. Time was ~1415. Our day was far from over... we decided to head out for the 17 mile drive of Pebble Beach.
Drove to a point closest to our hotel to enter the 17mile drive. If you are a visitor to the Pebble Beach area, you've got to pony up $9.50 to purchase entry. The drive is spectacularly scenic and among other things takes you by several golf courses, including Pebble Beach, along the way. We paused numerous times along the way to take in the sights and enjoy some of the many interesting landmarks peppered along the coast line. Quite the windy day and yet there were plenty of hardy golfers out on the course stroking away. Our last stop was at the famous Pebble Beach Golf Club. We found parking and got out to explore.
If you love golf, Pebble Beach has plenty of vacation packages to accommodate hardcore golf fanatics. We were happy to just wander around the first tee and the putting green - which happened to be adjacent to the Lodge and Tap Room. Decided it would be cool to go into the Tap Room and enjoy some beverages of our choice and dessert. The golfing lifestyle and participants are a very different sort, as different as the boating lifestyle is to those of us that don't frequent those environments and venues. The one thing in common with both is: money... you need alot of it to carouse around at PGA level courses or yacht clubs of the rich & famous. I'm happy to be an occasional interloper to both worlds, most particularly to the boating world and sailing. Still, all-in-all a very pleasant hour spent enjoying delicious desserts and soaking up the ambiance of Pebble Beach! By the way, I enjoyed the Key Lime pie with a 'hot coffee toddy', Conor had an apple crumb something and, Rosie enjoyed a huge coconut cake. We paid our tab and strolled back to the SUV via the high brow shops that lined the putting green.
Left Pebble Beach and the 17mile drive via Hwy 1N back to Monterey. Got back to the hotel and our room by 1730. Still stuff to do so, freshened up some and headed back out to Cannery Row. My own selfish objective was to go mash as many souvenir pennies as I could along the Row... which ended up being about 14 of them at $.51 cents a pop! Love 'em.
Side Note: the morning we were leaving Monterey to Big Sur, Rosie and I decided to do some laundry. Took us a while to find the little laundromat but, we did. Only had 1 load to do and took us just over an hour to wash, dry and fold everything. That's not what this side note is about though... it's the change machines dotted around Cannery Row. We needed quarters to do the laundry so, we went up to one and I put in a $5 bill. I was expecting 20 quarters but instead, it spit out 5 $1 coins! I was quite pleased with that... something I absolutely didn't expect and, no surprise here, I like collecting the $1 coins! We ended up getting quarters at the laundromat. :-)
Anyway, we enjoyed a nice leisurely stroll almost back down to the Aquarium before turning around to head back. We weren't that hungry due to our late lunch and later dessert but, we went looking for a place to sit, relax and have some cocktails. Ended up walking up off the main strip, 1 block, and discovered the Cannery Row Brewing Company. Decided to try our luck... was a great choice! We asked for and got seated outside right next to a burning fire pit (not a real one but one that was gas fed)... key because it was still on the chilly side. Interestingly though, while we were enjoying our time in outside, the weather started to clear and you could clearly see the blue skies above. Our days in California ran long and really didn't go dark until 9 o'clockish.
Rosie and I really enjoyed our time this evening with Conor. We enjoyed some of the CR Brewing Co's micro brews and ordered finger food to snack on. As we started relaxing and opening up our conversations, Conor really had a lot of family questions of us. Both of us were quite surprised at the questions Conor asked of us and the inaccurate understandings he had of some of why our family is the way it is. We were happy to answer all his questions and tell him as many stories about growing up with Conor as we could remember. We spent over 2 very enjoyable hours just chatting and enjoying each others company before we settled up and walked back to our hotel. Got back to the room at ~2130.
What an incredible, amazing day! On to Big Sur tomorrow.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Day 3: San Francisco to Monterey
It's Sunday, 7/1, here in San Francisco. Our target destination for today will be Monterey via the PCH approximately 120miles down the coast.
I was up comfortably early by 0600 and decided to go down and utilize the Fairmont's fitness room. While I was enjoying a 30min recumbent bike ride, Conor and Rosie made time to go down to the Cafe on the parking garage level to pick up coffee and some continental breakfast. Got back up to the room by 0700 and discovered that Rosie had bought me a spinach and cheese croissant and a skim latte for breakfast. I enjoyed both.
Side Note: just as we were preparing to depart the Fairmont, I got a strange voicemail message from my cousin Ricky in Oklahoma. In his voicemail he said that Carla, our sister-in-law married to my older brother Bill, had posted a message in FB asking for prayers for her son Sean. Ricky was wondering if we knew why that was about. My Mississippi family aren't the best communicators when it comes to important family happenings. I told Rosie about the message he left and she immediately called Carla and got through to her. While she was getting the details of a car accident my nephew, Sean, had just been in, I called Ricky back. Turns out Sean had dropped off a friend up in Starksville, MS, and was on the way back to his place when he lost control of his vehicle and it went tumbling out of control. Somehow Sean's left arm got caught outside as the car rolled and one of the primary arteries in his arm was severed and he had been rushed to hospital for surgery. No idea when or how it happened, who found him and called for an ambulance, etc - that will be for later. We're all very concerned for Sean's well being. Anyway, it was nice speaking with Ricky, gave him the update as we knew it and, wished his family well. We'll definitely keep Sean in our prayers for a speedy recovery.
We were all cleaned up, packed, checked out of the Fairmont and in our SUV heading out for the day by 0945. In no big hurry to get down to Monterey. Conor had voiced a desire to drive down the 101 to Menlo Park, ~30miles, in order to check our Facebook's (FB) HQ so, we headed down that way. Light traffic on this Sunday and the weather looked like it would eventually clear up nicely. We found our way to FB and were underwhelmed with the look of their campus. The coolest thing one sees at the traffic light at the entrance to the FB is their iconic 'thumbs up' on a blue sign. Made a slow loop of the campus. It's pretty sizable but mostly deserted on this weekend day. Well, we could say we'd been there.
Needed to backtrack north on Hwy 101 until we came to the Hwy 92 exit which would take us over the San Mateo mountains to Half Moon Bay on the PCH. Was a very pretty, wooded ride but still a bit misty. Stopped for gas in Half Moon Bay before continuing back north on the PCH. My goal was to be able to say we traveled almost the entire length of PCH down to Los Angeles so, we drove the ~15miles up to Pacifica. Once we reached Pacifica, we pulled into a shopping mall area to buy some donuts and shoe laces for my Sketchers in a Payless Shoe store. Having accomplished our tasks, we jumped back on the PCH to head back south destination: Monterey.
Annie told us Monterey was ~105miles from Pacifica via PCH. It's a very scenic drive and we made quite a few stops along the way including: Montara State Beach; Pescadero State Preserve where we took time to enjoy the scenery overlooking the rocky beach there and was home to at least 1 sea otter and a number of sea lions; Pigeon Point Lighthouse where we discovered a hostel in addition to the lighthouse and gorgeous views; Waddle Beach where there were quite a few para surfers enjoying the great weather and high winds, and; we drove through Santa Cruz without stopping.
Once you get to the Santa Cruz area, the allure of PCH turns into multi-lane highways on down to Monterey. We looked for places to pull in to lunch but, could never quite find a place to our liking so, we just continued on until we got to our hotel, a Holiday Inn Express, off of Wave St right adjacent to Cannery Row in Monterey at 1515. What a terrific location! Just 1 block off the water and a short 5 min drive or 20min walk to the old Fisherman's Wharf.
You park under the hotel and the parking garage elevator just happened to take us up to the 3rd floor and opened up to our room there, 315. After we got settled, decided to head out to find us a place to have a late lunch since we'd only had breakfast back in San Francisco. I was craving fish tacos and asked the front desk where we could find some good ones. We were told to walk to Papa Chevo's a short 100yds away! Papa Chevo apparently made some of the best fish tacos around. In less than 5mins we'd found Papa Chevo's and put in our orders: fish tacos for Rosie and I, carne asade tacos for Conor. They did not disappoint. The fish tacos were delicious!
After our brief repast, we headed out towards Cannery Row and the Aquarium talking about many things including the possibility of renting kayaks the next day to take out onto the bay. Easy walking distance from where we were and our hotel. Cannery Row feels familiar but, strangely new to me all at the same time. Many things had to have changed in the decade we'd been away but, I couldn't tell you what those changes were. Tons of shopping and eateries line both sides of the main drag. Also, tons of penny mashers (one of my favorite collectibles) all along the Row. Conor and I indulged in some ice cream along the way before we continued on into the aquarium.
The Aquarium in Monterey is pretty cool. You can book time snorkeling or diving in their open ocean pool to get up close and personal with the variety of sea life in and about Monterey Bay or just spend a great deal of time wandering throughout the aquarium, indoors and outdoors. It's a bit pricey, $35/adult, $32/student, but, you gotta go. Turns out on this particular evening they had a wine tasting event with an open bar and food for purchase while a jazz group entertained the visitors after 1800. That was pretty good. We were only in the aquarium from 1705 to 1945 and enjoyed our short time there. Before we left we'd gone back outside to stare at the kelp forests, sea otters and kayaker's. Rosie and/or Conor struck up a conversation with a tall fellow on holiday from Atlanta and he shared with us some remarkable video on this Canon camera of the 1/2 day whale watching trip he enjoyed on this day. He had some great video of blue whales and we suddenly changed our plans for the next day!
Left the aquarium and made our way back to the hotel by 2015. We planned on calling one of the Whale Watching tour company's in the morning to book 3 seats. Hopefully, the weather would be as good as it was on this day. Skipped dinner because of our late lunch and the light snacks we purchased at the museum. Another great day and relatively early night for us.
I was up comfortably early by 0600 and decided to go down and utilize the Fairmont's fitness room. While I was enjoying a 30min recumbent bike ride, Conor and Rosie made time to go down to the Cafe on the parking garage level to pick up coffee and some continental breakfast. Got back up to the room by 0700 and discovered that Rosie had bought me a spinach and cheese croissant and a skim latte for breakfast. I enjoyed both.
Side Note: just as we were preparing to depart the Fairmont, I got a strange voicemail message from my cousin Ricky in Oklahoma. In his voicemail he said that Carla, our sister-in-law married to my older brother Bill, had posted a message in FB asking for prayers for her son Sean. Ricky was wondering if we knew why that was about. My Mississippi family aren't the best communicators when it comes to important family happenings. I told Rosie about the message he left and she immediately called Carla and got through to her. While she was getting the details of a car accident my nephew, Sean, had just been in, I called Ricky back. Turns out Sean had dropped off a friend up in Starksville, MS, and was on the way back to his place when he lost control of his vehicle and it went tumbling out of control. Somehow Sean's left arm got caught outside as the car rolled and one of the primary arteries in his arm was severed and he had been rushed to hospital for surgery. No idea when or how it happened, who found him and called for an ambulance, etc - that will be for later. We're all very concerned for Sean's well being. Anyway, it was nice speaking with Ricky, gave him the update as we knew it and, wished his family well. We'll definitely keep Sean in our prayers for a speedy recovery.
We were all cleaned up, packed, checked out of the Fairmont and in our SUV heading out for the day by 0945. In no big hurry to get down to Monterey. Conor had voiced a desire to drive down the 101 to Menlo Park, ~30miles, in order to check our Facebook's (FB) HQ so, we headed down that way. Light traffic on this Sunday and the weather looked like it would eventually clear up nicely. We found our way to FB and were underwhelmed with the look of their campus. The coolest thing one sees at the traffic light at the entrance to the FB is their iconic 'thumbs up' on a blue sign. Made a slow loop of the campus. It's pretty sizable but mostly deserted on this weekend day. Well, we could say we'd been there.
Needed to backtrack north on Hwy 101 until we came to the Hwy 92 exit which would take us over the San Mateo mountains to Half Moon Bay on the PCH. Was a very pretty, wooded ride but still a bit misty. Stopped for gas in Half Moon Bay before continuing back north on the PCH. My goal was to be able to say we traveled almost the entire length of PCH down to Los Angeles so, we drove the ~15miles up to Pacifica. Once we reached Pacifica, we pulled into a shopping mall area to buy some donuts and shoe laces for my Sketchers in a Payless Shoe store. Having accomplished our tasks, we jumped back on the PCH to head back south destination: Monterey.
Annie told us Monterey was ~105miles from Pacifica via PCH. It's a very scenic drive and we made quite a few stops along the way including: Montara State Beach; Pescadero State Preserve where we took time to enjoy the scenery overlooking the rocky beach there and was home to at least 1 sea otter and a number of sea lions; Pigeon Point Lighthouse where we discovered a hostel in addition to the lighthouse and gorgeous views; Waddle Beach where there were quite a few para surfers enjoying the great weather and high winds, and; we drove through Santa Cruz without stopping.
Once you get to the Santa Cruz area, the allure of PCH turns into multi-lane highways on down to Monterey. We looked for places to pull in to lunch but, could never quite find a place to our liking so, we just continued on until we got to our hotel, a Holiday Inn Express, off of Wave St right adjacent to Cannery Row in Monterey at 1515. What a terrific location! Just 1 block off the water and a short 5 min drive or 20min walk to the old Fisherman's Wharf.
You park under the hotel and the parking garage elevator just happened to take us up to the 3rd floor and opened up to our room there, 315. After we got settled, decided to head out to find us a place to have a late lunch since we'd only had breakfast back in San Francisco. I was craving fish tacos and asked the front desk where we could find some good ones. We were told to walk to Papa Chevo's a short 100yds away! Papa Chevo apparently made some of the best fish tacos around. In less than 5mins we'd found Papa Chevo's and put in our orders: fish tacos for Rosie and I, carne asade tacos for Conor. They did not disappoint. The fish tacos were delicious!
After our brief repast, we headed out towards Cannery Row and the Aquarium talking about many things including the possibility of renting kayaks the next day to take out onto the bay. Easy walking distance from where we were and our hotel. Cannery Row feels familiar but, strangely new to me all at the same time. Many things had to have changed in the decade we'd been away but, I couldn't tell you what those changes were. Tons of shopping and eateries line both sides of the main drag. Also, tons of penny mashers (one of my favorite collectibles) all along the Row. Conor and I indulged in some ice cream along the way before we continued on into the aquarium.
The Aquarium in Monterey is pretty cool. You can book time snorkeling or diving in their open ocean pool to get up close and personal with the variety of sea life in and about Monterey Bay or just spend a great deal of time wandering throughout the aquarium, indoors and outdoors. It's a bit pricey, $35/adult, $32/student, but, you gotta go. Turns out on this particular evening they had a wine tasting event with an open bar and food for purchase while a jazz group entertained the visitors after 1800. That was pretty good. We were only in the aquarium from 1705 to 1945 and enjoyed our short time there. Before we left we'd gone back outside to stare at the kelp forests, sea otters and kayaker's. Rosie and/or Conor struck up a conversation with a tall fellow on holiday from Atlanta and he shared with us some remarkable video on this Canon camera of the 1/2 day whale watching trip he enjoyed on this day. He had some great video of blue whales and we suddenly changed our plans for the next day!
Left the aquarium and made our way back to the hotel by 2015. We planned on calling one of the Whale Watching tour company's in the morning to book 3 seats. Hopefully, the weather would be as good as it was on this day. Skipped dinner because of our late lunch and the light snacks we purchased at the museum. Another great day and relatively early night for us.
Day 2: San Francisco to Calistoga via Napa Valley
Author's Note: This is the first blog I've ever really written post-adventure. That wasn't my plan but, I had a suspicion it might come to that because of how long our days were most likely going to be during the trip. Fortunately, I had also planned to maintain a daily journal - at a fairly high level - of our experiences. With the help of Conor and Rosie's collective memories, I made time when I could to jot down notes during the day, with the bulk of my/our recollections entered in my journal during the evenings just before turning in. In retrospect, not optimal since many of the detail nuances of what I was seeing, thinking and experiencing may be lost to time. So, any content detail forgotten and not captured in this blog was more than made up for by my being more in the moment during our adventure with Conor. :-)
==================================
Still working on acclimating to the West coast time change and still have my work too much on my mind. :-( Up early on this Saturday morning. We all decided to fore go breakfast in the hotel in order to get an early start to the day. We'd look for a breakfast opportunity on our way to wine country. Our primary goal for this day: Chateau Montelena (CM) in Calistoga north of Napa but, in the 'valley'. Rosie and I are looking forward to the wine tasting event she scheduled for us at CM. Before leaving New Jersey months back, she'd reserved a private wine tasting for the 3 of us in CM's library scheduled for 1130 in the morning.
Side Note: Back in 1976 Chateau Montelena along with Stag's Leap, both of Napa Valley, put Napa and US wine making on the world map by taking on the best French wines and French palates and winning a blind taste testing held in France. That seminal event is entertainingly documented in the movie, Bottle Shock, starring Alan Rickman and Chris Pine. CM won with their '73 Chardonnay and Stag's won for their '73 Cabernet Savignon. This movie was the inspiration behind our decision to go to CM for a wine tasting.
Before leaving the room, called down to guest services to let them know we wouldn't be needing maid service... mostly, so we didn't have to pick up where we'd left all of our stuff around the room. We gathered up our day packs, including all of our camera gear, and took the elevator down to the parking garage level to pick up our SUV. We were all quite impressed with how skilled the valet parking attendants were in maneuvering very large vehicles within inches of each other without hitting anything!
Drove out of the garage under the hotel at 0745. My Garmin GPS, 'Annie', told us the trip distance was approximately 75miles. San Francisco at this time in the morning on this particular day was shrouded in a thick mist alternating with thick fog. We made our way over the Golden Gate bridge without ever having a good look at it or the surrounding bay - no toll going north by the way. The fog lifted as we approached the Sausalito area on the 101 north. Annie had us going much further north on the 101 before cutting over towards Calistoga but, I took the first exit I saw towards Napa in order to enjoy the drive along back roads.
Beautiful landscapes and scenery along the way mostly of cattle farms and wineries all over sloping hills. We were all getting a bit peckish and before long Rosie spotted a diner sign up ahead... we pulled over and discovered the Fremont Diner in Fremont, CA. The diner seemed a bit out of place in what felt like the middle of nowhere en route to Napa and the ambiance and decor of the place hearkened to days of yesteryear... it was GREAT! We all enjoyed delicious breakfasts with our hot beverages served up in heavy mugs and our cold drinks served up in mason jelly jars. I particularly enjoyed their biscuits and gravy. After breakfast and before getting back on the road, we made time just to stroll around and take photos of the property and adjacent vineyards.
Back on the road and we eventually made it to Napa and decided to drive downtown for a quick visit. We still had plenty of time before our scheduled appointment up at CM so we parked and got out for a little walk. There wasn't much to see since everything was still closed. Conor was looking for a nice button down shirt to buy for our wine tasting - no luck in Napa early on this Saturday.
Jumped back in the car and continued north on state Rt. 29. Route 29, aka St. Helena Highway, is basically the main feeder between Napa and Calistoga and runs the length of the Valley. Vineyards of all shapes/sizes and notoriety line the route... there's even a train that runs up and down the valley that will take you to many vineyards for sightseeing and tasting and back again to wherever you may be staying or parking. As we drove through the small towns along the way, kept an eye open for any place we might find suitable clothing for purchase. Our patience finally paid off in the town of St. Helena.
We found easy parking along main street and jumped out to do a bit of shopping. Was still early in the morning, ~1015, as we strolled along downtown St. Helena. Conor and I found a good place to shop and eventually both of us bought new button down shirts to wear for our wine tasting. Rosie also had good success in buying gifts for friends. Decided we liked St. Helena alot and wished we had a bit more time to spend there. But, we didn't want to be late for our wine tasting event.
On we went. Only 7-8 miles to go and we arrived at Chateau Montelena at 1105 with plenty of time to spare and wander around. The vineyards address is off of Tubbs Lane. One never knows exactly what to expect from someplace you've never been and CM was no different. It just felt really cool to be actually be standing on the property located at the base of foothills covered with grape vines. Once you find the parking area, one of the first things you notice after the grape vines is a man-made lake that reminds you of the Orient with a bridge that connects to a small island in the middle of it with a pagoda on it with table and chairs! Strange but interesting.
The vineyard was already working on setting up for the days events, mostly wine tasting, and we asked some of the workers where we needed to go for our sessions. They directed us up some stairs that took us up to the now iconic building facade that adorns all of CM's wine bottles and is prominently featured in the movie. We were quite excited to be standing in front of CM's most prominent architectural feature reminiscent of a castle all carved into the hillside! Took a lot of photos - I know, no surprise here.
To the left of the 'castle' was another set of steps up to the wine tasting area. Made our way up and checked in with the hostess, Susan??, who led us back to the main private taste testing area. Since we were early we were treated to a very nice Chardonnay, perhaps the best I can recall ever tasting, and just wandered around the long tasting area taking in the hanging art and posters of all the previous and current owners of Chateau Montelena. We discovered that the lake and pagoda feature were the brain child of the Chinese owners of CM before the Barrett's took over. Just before 1130 the 3 of us were escorted into the library for a more intimate wine tasting hosted by Christina, who had worked with CM for over 20 years, and 1 other very nice couple.
What a great, relaxing time in a very intimate setting where we could taste, chat and ask whatever questions were on our mind about the subject at hand. Our hostess was great and very knowledgeable. We started off with a nice Riesling, just for compare/contrast, before going on to the 4 Montelena Estate Cab Savs in front of us: the 03/04/05/06. CM specializes in Cabernet Savignon's but, also makes great white wines from grapes purchased from other Napa Valley wineries. When the Barrett's purchased CM, they were experimenting with a variety of grape types, including whites, and one of those initial grape types included a Chardonnay that eventually won at the Paris wine tasting back in 1976.
The 1 hour event flew by. Whether due to the wine or our enthusiastic enjoyment of being there on holiday, I signed up for one of CM's CellarMaster Wine Clubs: Futures. For that, me and mine receive special on site privileges including parking and, 6 to 12 bottles of their wine each year. I'm excited to be a part of their Wine Club! We departed CM with a few souvenirs in hand including the 4 corks from the bottles of wine we enjoyed and a 1/2 bottle of the 2005 Cab Sav. We were quite peckish and decided to go have lunch somewhere in downtown Calistoga.
Departed CM at 1300 for lunch. Downtown Calistoga's only 2 miles from CM so, a very short trip to get there. As we were parking on main street, had a small emergency when Rosie couldn't find her iPhone! Wasn't sure what had happened to it so, we called CM. They had it and would hold on to it until we picked it up later... much relief in our party. :-)
Calistoga has the look and feel of a small western town, albeit a more modern one. We did a little shopping. Rosie found some perfume she'd been searching for and Conor and I made some purchases in the 'Man Shop': me a US made Bertucci watch and Conor, a new camera backpack. Asked around some for a good place to have lunch and got pointed to the Hydro Bar & Grill. Had a very nice lunch and drove back to CM to retrieve Rosie's iPhone. Parked in the CellarMaster parking area. :-)
Left CM at ~1430 en route to a place on the coast Rosie wanted to go visit: Point Reyes National Seashore and the lighthouse there. We had no idea the journey we were in for just to get there! The trip appeared to be a reasonable 70 miles or so to get to the lighthouse. As we were leaving the Valley over the western mountains, we discovered the National Petrified Forest park and had to stop in - just to say we were there. Spent about 15mins in the gift shop only to decide we didn't have enough time to do the forest and make Pt. Reyes so, we left for Pt. Reyes at ~1500.
The first 35miles of the trip go very fast. Once we exited Hwy 101 for Petaluma, everything slowed down. Petaluma to Inverness, just outside of the National Seashore, was about 25 miles on a two lane road and that went OK too. The weather was gorgeous all the way until we started approaching the town of Inverness to head on towards the Lighthouse. The last stretch of the trip out to the very Point of Reyes from Inverness, ~15miles, took forever on a narrow, extremely windy, 2 lane road with the weather closing down on us in a very cool, misty fog. The only things to really see along the way in bad weather are the 5-6 very old cattle stations - still in operation - lining the way out to the remote lighthouse. Took us 2 1/2 hrs to finally get to Point Reyes arriving at 1730 in very poor weather, visibility less than 1/2 a mile. As we approached the parking area, we discovered that the lighthouse closed down at 1630 so, we missed any chance of visiting it! That may not have been a bad thing. In order to get to the lighthouse, you have to walk down steps the equivalent of a 30 story building... about 300 steps and then back again. We parked anyway and then had a 1/4mile hike up hill just to get to the viewing area. Figured it was the least we could do since we made the effort to get to this landmark. Although the end result was disappointing, the adventure was still great fun with Conor and Rosie just to get there. Saw what we could, took some photos and headed back to the SUV. Amazingly, as we were walking back down, there were still quite a few folks walking up to see what they could too.
Departed Point Reyes at ~1815 with Conor at the helm. We had to back track 25miles of slow, 2 lane roads. Just before arriving back in Infernos, we went right instead of left to intercept and drive the PCH north of San Francisco south back to the city. The first half of the ride on PCH wasn't bad. With the weather the way it was, there's a ~10mile stretch of PCH that's extremely windy, full of switch backs and in many places feels like you're on a precipice that leads to death! Was very 'white' knuckled, curled toes, tingly feet riding for Rosie and I. Conor did a great job... still, we were very happy when we got back on the 101 in pretty heavy traffic to go back over the Golden Gate bridge into San Francisco for the 5-6miles to get back to the Fairmont. Unfortunately, the weather had moved back in (of course, we really didn't know if it had ever moved off during the day) and we couldn't enjoy the view going back over the bridge. Attempted to pull up to the front of the hotel to drop off the SUV for the valet to take for us but, the street fronting the Fairmont, Mason St, was blocked off. Turns out the hotel was hosting the 'Fog Rally' consisting of many Ferrarri's parked out on Mason St. So, we went around the block, pulled into the parking garage, gave the keys to valet and, walked into the hotel and took the elevator up to the 6th floor. Time: 2015. Took us 2hrs to go approximately 55miles!
As late as it was, we only went up to the room to drop off our trappings of the day and to freshen up a bit. At 2030 we decided to walk to dinner someplace and used Yelp on Conor's iPhone to find a couple of Italian restaurants nearby. Sadly, both of them were quite busy and had 45min waits. We recalled a Thai food restaurant on Powell St we saw on the way back up to the hotel and headed that way. We eventually found 'Navin' and sat down for some excellent Thai food! Finally got back to our room at 2130 and decided to chill for the rest of the evening after a very, long, day... but, what a day!
==================================
Still working on acclimating to the West coast time change and still have my work too much on my mind. :-( Up early on this Saturday morning. We all decided to fore go breakfast in the hotel in order to get an early start to the day. We'd look for a breakfast opportunity on our way to wine country. Our primary goal for this day: Chateau Montelena (CM) in Calistoga north of Napa but, in the 'valley'. Rosie and I are looking forward to the wine tasting event she scheduled for us at CM. Before leaving New Jersey months back, she'd reserved a private wine tasting for the 3 of us in CM's library scheduled for 1130 in the morning.
Side Note: Back in 1976 Chateau Montelena along with Stag's Leap, both of Napa Valley, put Napa and US wine making on the world map by taking on the best French wines and French palates and winning a blind taste testing held in France. That seminal event is entertainingly documented in the movie, Bottle Shock, starring Alan Rickman and Chris Pine. CM won with their '73 Chardonnay and Stag's won for their '73 Cabernet Savignon. This movie was the inspiration behind our decision to go to CM for a wine tasting.
Before leaving the room, called down to guest services to let them know we wouldn't be needing maid service... mostly, so we didn't have to pick up where we'd left all of our stuff around the room. We gathered up our day packs, including all of our camera gear, and took the elevator down to the parking garage level to pick up our SUV. We were all quite impressed with how skilled the valet parking attendants were in maneuvering very large vehicles within inches of each other without hitting anything!
Drove out of the garage under the hotel at 0745. My Garmin GPS, 'Annie', told us the trip distance was approximately 75miles. San Francisco at this time in the morning on this particular day was shrouded in a thick mist alternating with thick fog. We made our way over the Golden Gate bridge without ever having a good look at it or the surrounding bay - no toll going north by the way. The fog lifted as we approached the Sausalito area on the 101 north. Annie had us going much further north on the 101 before cutting over towards Calistoga but, I took the first exit I saw towards Napa in order to enjoy the drive along back roads.
Beautiful landscapes and scenery along the way mostly of cattle farms and wineries all over sloping hills. We were all getting a bit peckish and before long Rosie spotted a diner sign up ahead... we pulled over and discovered the Fremont Diner in Fremont, CA. The diner seemed a bit out of place in what felt like the middle of nowhere en route to Napa and the ambiance and decor of the place hearkened to days of yesteryear... it was GREAT! We all enjoyed delicious breakfasts with our hot beverages served up in heavy mugs and our cold drinks served up in mason jelly jars. I particularly enjoyed their biscuits and gravy. After breakfast and before getting back on the road, we made time just to stroll around and take photos of the property and adjacent vineyards.
Back on the road and we eventually made it to Napa and decided to drive downtown for a quick visit. We still had plenty of time before our scheduled appointment up at CM so we parked and got out for a little walk. There wasn't much to see since everything was still closed. Conor was looking for a nice button down shirt to buy for our wine tasting - no luck in Napa early on this Saturday.
Jumped back in the car and continued north on state Rt. 29. Route 29, aka St. Helena Highway, is basically the main feeder between Napa and Calistoga and runs the length of the Valley. Vineyards of all shapes/sizes and notoriety line the route... there's even a train that runs up and down the valley that will take you to many vineyards for sightseeing and tasting and back again to wherever you may be staying or parking. As we drove through the small towns along the way, kept an eye open for any place we might find suitable clothing for purchase. Our patience finally paid off in the town of St. Helena.
We found easy parking along main street and jumped out to do a bit of shopping. Was still early in the morning, ~1015, as we strolled along downtown St. Helena. Conor and I found a good place to shop and eventually both of us bought new button down shirts to wear for our wine tasting. Rosie also had good success in buying gifts for friends. Decided we liked St. Helena alot and wished we had a bit more time to spend there. But, we didn't want to be late for our wine tasting event.
On we went. Only 7-8 miles to go and we arrived at Chateau Montelena at 1105 with plenty of time to spare and wander around. The vineyards address is off of Tubbs Lane. One never knows exactly what to expect from someplace you've never been and CM was no different. It just felt really cool to be actually be standing on the property located at the base of foothills covered with grape vines. Once you find the parking area, one of the first things you notice after the grape vines is a man-made lake that reminds you of the Orient with a bridge that connects to a small island in the middle of it with a pagoda on it with table and chairs! Strange but interesting.
The vineyard was already working on setting up for the days events, mostly wine tasting, and we asked some of the workers where we needed to go for our sessions. They directed us up some stairs that took us up to the now iconic building facade that adorns all of CM's wine bottles and is prominently featured in the movie. We were quite excited to be standing in front of CM's most prominent architectural feature reminiscent of a castle all carved into the hillside! Took a lot of photos - I know, no surprise here.
To the left of the 'castle' was another set of steps up to the wine tasting area. Made our way up and checked in with the hostess, Susan??, who led us back to the main private taste testing area. Since we were early we were treated to a very nice Chardonnay, perhaps the best I can recall ever tasting, and just wandered around the long tasting area taking in the hanging art and posters of all the previous and current owners of Chateau Montelena. We discovered that the lake and pagoda feature were the brain child of the Chinese owners of CM before the Barrett's took over. Just before 1130 the 3 of us were escorted into the library for a more intimate wine tasting hosted by Christina, who had worked with CM for over 20 years, and 1 other very nice couple.
What a great, relaxing time in a very intimate setting where we could taste, chat and ask whatever questions were on our mind about the subject at hand. Our hostess was great and very knowledgeable. We started off with a nice Riesling, just for compare/contrast, before going on to the 4 Montelena Estate Cab Savs in front of us: the 03/04/05/06. CM specializes in Cabernet Savignon's but, also makes great white wines from grapes purchased from other Napa Valley wineries. When the Barrett's purchased CM, they were experimenting with a variety of grape types, including whites, and one of those initial grape types included a Chardonnay that eventually won at the Paris wine tasting back in 1976.
The 1 hour event flew by. Whether due to the wine or our enthusiastic enjoyment of being there on holiday, I signed up for one of CM's CellarMaster Wine Clubs: Futures. For that, me and mine receive special on site privileges including parking and, 6 to 12 bottles of their wine each year. I'm excited to be a part of their Wine Club! We departed CM with a few souvenirs in hand including the 4 corks from the bottles of wine we enjoyed and a 1/2 bottle of the 2005 Cab Sav. We were quite peckish and decided to go have lunch somewhere in downtown Calistoga.
Departed CM at 1300 for lunch. Downtown Calistoga's only 2 miles from CM so, a very short trip to get there. As we were parking on main street, had a small emergency when Rosie couldn't find her iPhone! Wasn't sure what had happened to it so, we called CM. They had it and would hold on to it until we picked it up later... much relief in our party. :-)
Calistoga has the look and feel of a small western town, albeit a more modern one. We did a little shopping. Rosie found some perfume she'd been searching for and Conor and I made some purchases in the 'Man Shop': me a US made Bertucci watch and Conor, a new camera backpack. Asked around some for a good place to have lunch and got pointed to the Hydro Bar & Grill. Had a very nice lunch and drove back to CM to retrieve Rosie's iPhone. Parked in the CellarMaster parking area. :-)
Left CM at ~1430 en route to a place on the coast Rosie wanted to go visit: Point Reyes National Seashore and the lighthouse there. We had no idea the journey we were in for just to get there! The trip appeared to be a reasonable 70 miles or so to get to the lighthouse. As we were leaving the Valley over the western mountains, we discovered the National Petrified Forest park and had to stop in - just to say we were there. Spent about 15mins in the gift shop only to decide we didn't have enough time to do the forest and make Pt. Reyes so, we left for Pt. Reyes at ~1500.
The first 35miles of the trip go very fast. Once we exited Hwy 101 for Petaluma, everything slowed down. Petaluma to Inverness, just outside of the National Seashore, was about 25 miles on a two lane road and that went OK too. The weather was gorgeous all the way until we started approaching the town of Inverness to head on towards the Lighthouse. The last stretch of the trip out to the very Point of Reyes from Inverness, ~15miles, took forever on a narrow, extremely windy, 2 lane road with the weather closing down on us in a very cool, misty fog. The only things to really see along the way in bad weather are the 5-6 very old cattle stations - still in operation - lining the way out to the remote lighthouse. Took us 2 1/2 hrs to finally get to Point Reyes arriving at 1730 in very poor weather, visibility less than 1/2 a mile. As we approached the parking area, we discovered that the lighthouse closed down at 1630 so, we missed any chance of visiting it! That may not have been a bad thing. In order to get to the lighthouse, you have to walk down steps the equivalent of a 30 story building... about 300 steps and then back again. We parked anyway and then had a 1/4mile hike up hill just to get to the viewing area. Figured it was the least we could do since we made the effort to get to this landmark. Although the end result was disappointing, the adventure was still great fun with Conor and Rosie just to get there. Saw what we could, took some photos and headed back to the SUV. Amazingly, as we were walking back down, there were still quite a few folks walking up to see what they could too.
Departed Point Reyes at ~1815 with Conor at the helm. We had to back track 25miles of slow, 2 lane roads. Just before arriving back in Infernos, we went right instead of left to intercept and drive the PCH north of San Francisco south back to the city. The first half of the ride on PCH wasn't bad. With the weather the way it was, there's a ~10mile stretch of PCH that's extremely windy, full of switch backs and in many places feels like you're on a precipice that leads to death! Was very 'white' knuckled, curled toes, tingly feet riding for Rosie and I. Conor did a great job... still, we were very happy when we got back on the 101 in pretty heavy traffic to go back over the Golden Gate bridge into San Francisco for the 5-6miles to get back to the Fairmont. Unfortunately, the weather had moved back in (of course, we really didn't know if it had ever moved off during the day) and we couldn't enjoy the view going back over the bridge. Attempted to pull up to the front of the hotel to drop off the SUV for the valet to take for us but, the street fronting the Fairmont, Mason St, was blocked off. Turns out the hotel was hosting the 'Fog Rally' consisting of many Ferrarri's parked out on Mason St. So, we went around the block, pulled into the parking garage, gave the keys to valet and, walked into the hotel and took the elevator up to the 6th floor. Time: 2015. Took us 2hrs to go approximately 55miles!
As late as it was, we only went up to the room to drop off our trappings of the day and to freshen up a bit. At 2030 we decided to walk to dinner someplace and used Yelp on Conor's iPhone to find a couple of Italian restaurants nearby. Sadly, both of them were quite busy and had 45min waits. We recalled a Thai food restaurant on Powell St we saw on the way back up to the hotel and headed that way. We eventually found 'Navin' and sat down for some excellent Thai food! Finally got back to our room at 2130 and decided to chill for the rest of the evening after a very, long, day... but, what a day!
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Day 1: Long Valley, NJ, to San Francisco, CA
Well hello World!! Up early this Saturday, 6/30... it's 0500 West Coast time, 0800 East Coast. Actually, got up at 0430 to take a shower and clean-up a bit - couldn't make myself sleep. We have a long day planned with lots of driving to get to where we want, to see/visit what we want to.
I'm sitting here in the dark in our Fairmont Hotel room, 679, about to begin my recollections on a excellent Day 1 here in California. This Fairmont is located in the famous Nob Hill area of San Francisco off of Mason St at one of the crossroads of the cable car routes... it's a rather nice hotel! :-)
On to yesterday's blog....
Up very early on this 1st day of holiday, ~ 0415. Rosie had set the alarm to go off at 0430 and it did. Not a very restful short night of sleep as is typical of us on the eve of departing on holiday. We were camping in our living room - the only room at the moment with a window air conditioner. Thursday, 6/28, had been quite hot. We spent the next 45mins getting cleaned up, double checking: luggage, carry-ons, accessories and, state of the house while we awaited the arrival of Terry's Taxi scheduled for 0530. The taxi was once again quite promplt, a little early in fact - 0520. Piled into the Honda mini-van with 2 pieces of luggage and 3 pieces of carryon. We had one false start. The first time we pulled out of the driveway, got to the end of our cul de sac when I realized I'd forgotten to put on my wedding band - I try wearing it on dates like these with Rosie. :-) So, went back, got it and off we went. All good. The start of this day was overcast.
Arrived at Newark Liberty 50mins later, at 0620, debarked the taxi, paid the fare ($90 = $75 + $15 tip) and, made our way to the Premier Access lines to check our 2 bags, none over 50#. No issues at security. Picked up a latte and yogurt at Starbucks before heading over to the concourse for Gates 70-99.
Coincidentally, turns out that Meg and Mike would be traveling out of Newark destined for Aruba on this day also, just a bit after we were scheduled to take-off at 0823. Found out their gate was 81 and headed over to await their arrival just to see them and visit for a bit before we had to head over to our gate, 90, for San Fran. They were running just a bit later than expected due to traffic but, made it to the gate in time for us to take some photos, exchange pleasantries and, have them walk us to our gate where we took more photos before they left back to their gate. Was very nice 'running' into them on this Friday.
There have been quite a few changes since Continental and United merged, many of which we have no clue about since we don't fly all that often. On this day the service personnel at the gate seemed a bit grumpy and the cabin crew, once we got onboard, just gave off a general sense of irritation... I was not impressed. I speculated that they were United folks trying to get used to how well Continental folks presented themselves. One of the changes that became obvious is how the 'new' United boards their passengers. It was initially a bit confusing and felt alot like SouthWest and/or JetBlue in that we were called forward based on the zone number on your ticket. Instead of having an Elite Access line and General Boarding, they now have Premier Access and General Boarding. The gate crew doesn't like it if you queue up before your zone number is called, we were zone 3.
I believe that the first handful of zones are for Premier Access folks but, really don't know.
I had upgraded our seats to Premier Economy which basically gives you a lot more legroom with guilt-free reclining... was very nice! Rosie and I were in seats 7B/C, first row behind 1st class in this Boeing 737-800/900 (a stretched 737 with winglets). By the time we took off at ~0830, the cabin crew had rubbed me the wrong way that I just refused anything they offered during the flight and stuck to the bottle of water I brought aboard. Rosie had a Starbucks parfait for breakfast and I enjoyed 1/2 a snickers bar. No real worries, got plenty of fat on my bones to sustain me for well past the 5 and 1/2hr flight to the West Coast. :-) We cruised at FL34000 and enjoyed a mostly smooth flight with only a few slightly turbulent episodes. Tried napping some during the flight, listened to music or watched music videos on my iPad. Rosie mostly napped, she can sleep on planes much better than I. Touched down in San Francisco International Airport (SFO) at ~1145 local.
The airport is quite large and located about 12miles south of the city proper. We pulled up to Terminal 3, gate 87 and deplaned. I had about 40 e-mails (not really that many) on my Blackberry and worked through most of them by the time we reached baggage claim to get our luggage. Down at baggage claim, level 1, we chatted up the information lady and found out that there was a few places to eat on level 3, where you also catch the air train, BART, to get to the rental car area. On we went.
Our intial thought was that we'd wait for Conor in the eating area. I was a bit peckish not having eaten since dinner the night before so, bought a bowl of SouthWestern Corn Chowder soup and a piece of sourdough bread for a quick bite. We saw quite a few people enjoying soup throughout the terminal which is what gave me the hankering to have some myself. Was excellent! Both Rosie and I enjoyed some before we changed our minds about waiting for Conor in the Terminal and headed over to the BART 'blue line' to make our way to the Rental location.
Having never been through rentals here in San Francisco, we walked over to the Enterprise counter only to be surprised at how long the queue was! Fortunately, I found a sign that had my name on it and proceeded down to level 2 and the Enterprise Plus kiosk. The Enterprise folks now greet you, shake your hand, and really try to make the experience personnel. We lucked out with getting the branch manager, Ryan, to help us pick between 2 nice SUVs. There was a bit of a mix up with the actual rental contract but, because we had a copy with us, he went with it's particulars including: unlimited mileage, one way drop off, all for less than $600! We had the choice of 2 fairly new SUVs to pick from... we went with the black, Buick Enclave, a bigger than mid-size SUV with only 800 miles on it. What a great rental! It was HUGE inside with all the amenities and 2 moon roofs, one in front and one in back, leather seats and the back seats were of 'captain' bucket seat style - perfect. By the time we'd sorted everything out, arranged to just loiter in Enterprise's parking area until waiting for Conor to arrive, it was 1245. Conor's flight had been delayed a bit. His flight landed at ~1315 and after he had landed, Rosie range him up to tell him where we were waiting for him. He'd checked no bags and had all he needed in his backpack. Rosie finally spied him walking towards us in the garage at ~1340 - he looked great! Did some quick greetings, a few photos... and we were out on the road to downtown San Fran by 1345 via Hwy 101N. The GPS, 'Annie', showed us about 12 miles to our hotel: the Fairmont on Nob Hill.
Side note: I had originally booked our rental with National, mostly because of the fact that you can pick the vehicle of your choice based on your Emerald level. They wanted ~$1200 for a one-way drop off and that never did sit well with me at all. Seemed very expensive. They'd quoted me a price of under $400 for a 9 day rental if I dropped it off back at SFO. So, a couple of days before we left New Jersey, I called up Enterprise to see what they could do for me (both National and Enterprise are Dell's corporate preferred partners). Turns out they would rent me an SUV, not just a car, for under $600! Cancelling my National and switching to Enterprise was a no brainer. :-) I really wanted to rent a big convertible but, unfortunately, none were available.
Needless to say we were all very excited to be together in San Francisco. The drive was fairly uneventful, moderate traffic for a Friday along the freeway. I'm always quite surprised at how 'hilly' the topography near and around San Francisco is - not to mention all the water that surrounds the peninsula leading up to the city. No wonder the entire area is referred to as the 'Bay' area. Traffic in San Francisco was just as heavy as any big city I've driven in with the one exception that makes 'Frisco different - the steep hills.
Finally made our way to the front of the Fairmont on Mason St and pulled up to valet parking. Parking in the Fairmont would cost $54/day - that's alot. Unloaded the SUV, gave it over to valet and made our way into the hotel to check in... it's quite grand and impressive. I went straight to the President's Club platinum members line and quickly got our key cards and a map before heading up to our room on the 6th floor, 679. The hotel's gone through many facelifts and survived many an earthquake. It's an old building with vaulted ceilings everywhere but, with all the modern amenities.
Took us longer than normal to get our luggage because I hadn't given our conceirge our room number. Had to call down to get our bags delivered. No worries, gave us enough time to just refresh ourselves before heading out on the town. So much to do, so little time! We attempted to queue up for a cable car ride down to the piers, the Fairmont being at the cross roads of 2 different cable car lines but, the two cars that came by were packed and there were people ahead of us.
So, we decided to hoof it. Wasn't that bad since the walk was all downhill and about 1 1/2 miles to the waterfront. We decided to target Fisherman's Wharf on Pier 39. The last time we visited we had pleasant memories of the wharf including seeing all of the sealions sunning themselves on floating piers made specifically for their use.
Well, we certainly didn't remember all of the build-up that's gone on since our last visit. Wasn't too much of a surprise to Conor. He'd been there in the not to distant past on CSUN travel. It was good having him to help us navigate around. My good friend, Russell, has turned me into a Hard Rock Cafe fan and I try really hard to visit them in those cities that have one in order to purchase pins and the occasional t-shirt. Turns out the Hard Rock in 'Frisco is right at the entrance to Pier 39! How convenient. :-) Since we were all a bit peckish, decided to eat lunch in the Cafe. Conor and I had their classic hamburgers and Rosie enjoyed the big sampler appetizer we ordered. We also enjoyed our first shared beverage together and enjoyed toasting our upcoming adventure.
The day was gorgeously blue, a bit on the cool side - no complaints - and very windy. We walked the length of the pier. Some of the vendors looked familiar, including the fresh fruit and veggie vendor we purchased cherries from last time we visited and, many of the shops didn't look familiar at all. Time does tend to place a veil of fuzziness on one's memories. Spent time at the end of the pier lamenting about the absence of sea lions. There was only 1 platform that had any on it. The rest were empty. We would find out later that a few years back, all the sea lions as a group just jumped off and left for Seattle! The Marine biologists still don't know why. We took alot of photos of the remaining sea lions, some of San Francisco including our hotel and, Alcatraz Island before reversing our path back along and off of Fisherman's Wharf.
From the Wharf I'd mentioned to Conor that I'd never visited the WWII boats moored a couple of piers away so, we headed over to go tour at least the submarine. Along the way we took a short pause to stop into Boudin's Sour Dough shop for bread. Conor'd been craving some of their famous leavened product for quite some time so, we had Rosie buy us some. I also had a double expresso because I was starting to feel the effects of very little sleep and 3 hours of time change. Felt more energized afterwards and the sourdough was excellent.
If I recall correctly, both the submarine, USS Pampanito (SS-383), a Balao Class fleet submarine and, the liberty ship, SS Jeremiah O'Brien, are moored at Pier 45. Both ships served with distinction in WWII with the submarine seeing action in the Pacific while the liberty ship actually took part in the D-Day landing at Normandy in 1944. Back in the day, over 18 shipyards built over 2700 liberty ships between 1941 and 1945, an incredible feat and demonstration of American Industrial might during wartimes! Only 2 remain today as floating museums - the other is the SS John W. Brown. If we had more time would have made our way to the SS Jeremiah O'Brien. On this day we were quite pleased with touring the USS Pampanito. One boards the submarine via gangplank and make your way aft to descend into the aft torpedo room. From there you head forward getting a very good sense of the cramped living conditions aboard a WWII submarine before ending in the forward torpedo room and exiting through the hatch that was used to onboard her torpedoes.
The pier that both WWII museum ships are moored at has a very large building on it that houses one of the oldest arcade gaming devices I've ever seen. Conor was quite keen to get back in there to play some of the games and just show us around. Just way different and very cool to see what games from a bygone era looked like and played compared with the high tech arcade game of today. Spent a good 30mins inside the arcade before leaving to find the cable car turnabout near Ghiradelli's.
By the time we found the Powel & Hyde St cable car turnabout, it was ~1745. The wind was still blowing 15-25kts and it was getting downright chilly and we weren't dressed for it. The turnabout had quite the line of folks waiting to hop on for a ride back to wherever. You can purchase your tickets at a booth right there. If I recall correctly, 3 1-way tickets cost us $18. Took quite awhile to make our way around the turnabout as each cable car that came in got manually turned on a turn table to point back in the right direction for travel. Each car can take a good number of riders - I didn't count how many - including up to 10 riders standing and hanging out of each side of the cable car. Before our turn, Rosie ran up to one of the street vendors on the street facing Ghiradelli's and bought us some $10 clothing to put on. Wouldn't have been too bad had there been no wind. After almost an hour and a half wait, we finally jumped into our car for the ride back up to Nob Hill and the Fairmont.
This was our first ride ever on a San Franciso cable car! I'm not sure what I was expecting of the ride but, it wasn't at all like I'd envisioned it was going to be. Unlike the Rice-a-Roni commercials and their addictive commercial jingle Rosie and I remember from years gone by, a few things stick out to me, namely: how noisy the ride actually is and, how quickly the cable car can move uphill getting pulled by an unseen underground cable that wends for miles below the streets of the city. I'm glad we did it... not to mention the fact that I was not looking forward to walking back up hill to the hotel at all! We reached our destination, jumped off at the hotel and made it back to our room by 1930.
We weren't that hungry but decided to go check out the restaurant/bar just off the lobby anyway. We took a look at the menu and weren't overly impressed. So, ended up just ordering drinks. Beers for Conor and I and wine for Rosie. Rosie was fading fast and didn't finish her drink before retiring up to our room for bed around 2130. Conor and I stayed and enjoyed a couple more drinks just chatting and catching up on many subjects before we called it a night and headed up to our room for the evening at ~2230. I made time to download all of the photos of the day before hitting the rack myself.
What a Great 1st Day in Northern California!!!
I'm sitting here in the dark in our Fairmont Hotel room, 679, about to begin my recollections on a excellent Day 1 here in California. This Fairmont is located in the famous Nob Hill area of San Francisco off of Mason St at one of the crossroads of the cable car routes... it's a rather nice hotel! :-)
On to yesterday's blog....
Up very early on this 1st day of holiday, ~ 0415. Rosie had set the alarm to go off at 0430 and it did. Not a very restful short night of sleep as is typical of us on the eve of departing on holiday. We were camping in our living room - the only room at the moment with a window air conditioner. Thursday, 6/28, had been quite hot. We spent the next 45mins getting cleaned up, double checking: luggage, carry-ons, accessories and, state of the house while we awaited the arrival of Terry's Taxi scheduled for 0530. The taxi was once again quite promplt, a little early in fact - 0520. Piled into the Honda mini-van with 2 pieces of luggage and 3 pieces of carryon. We had one false start. The first time we pulled out of the driveway, got to the end of our cul de sac when I realized I'd forgotten to put on my wedding band - I try wearing it on dates like these with Rosie. :-) So, went back, got it and off we went. All good. The start of this day was overcast.
Arrived at Newark Liberty 50mins later, at 0620, debarked the taxi, paid the fare ($90 = $75 + $15 tip) and, made our way to the Premier Access lines to check our 2 bags, none over 50#. No issues at security. Picked up a latte and yogurt at Starbucks before heading over to the concourse for Gates 70-99.
Coincidentally, turns out that Meg and Mike would be traveling out of Newark destined for Aruba on this day also, just a bit after we were scheduled to take-off at 0823. Found out their gate was 81 and headed over to await their arrival just to see them and visit for a bit before we had to head over to our gate, 90, for San Fran. They were running just a bit later than expected due to traffic but, made it to the gate in time for us to take some photos, exchange pleasantries and, have them walk us to our gate where we took more photos before they left back to their gate. Was very nice 'running' into them on this Friday.
There have been quite a few changes since Continental and United merged, many of which we have no clue about since we don't fly all that often. On this day the service personnel at the gate seemed a bit grumpy and the cabin crew, once we got onboard, just gave off a general sense of irritation... I was not impressed. I speculated that they were United folks trying to get used to how well Continental folks presented themselves. One of the changes that became obvious is how the 'new' United boards their passengers. It was initially a bit confusing and felt alot like SouthWest and/or JetBlue in that we were called forward based on the zone number on your ticket. Instead of having an Elite Access line and General Boarding, they now have Premier Access and General Boarding. The gate crew doesn't like it if you queue up before your zone number is called, we were zone 3.
I believe that the first handful of zones are for Premier Access folks but, really don't know.
I had upgraded our seats to Premier Economy which basically gives you a lot more legroom with guilt-free reclining... was very nice! Rosie and I were in seats 7B/C, first row behind 1st class in this Boeing 737-800/900 (a stretched 737 with winglets). By the time we took off at ~0830, the cabin crew had rubbed me the wrong way that I just refused anything they offered during the flight and stuck to the bottle of water I brought aboard. Rosie had a Starbucks parfait for breakfast and I enjoyed 1/2 a snickers bar. No real worries, got plenty of fat on my bones to sustain me for well past the 5 and 1/2hr flight to the West Coast. :-) We cruised at FL34000 and enjoyed a mostly smooth flight with only a few slightly turbulent episodes. Tried napping some during the flight, listened to music or watched music videos on my iPad. Rosie mostly napped, she can sleep on planes much better than I. Touched down in San Francisco International Airport (SFO) at ~1145 local.
The airport is quite large and located about 12miles south of the city proper. We pulled up to Terminal 3, gate 87 and deplaned. I had about 40 e-mails (not really that many) on my Blackberry and worked through most of them by the time we reached baggage claim to get our luggage. Down at baggage claim, level 1, we chatted up the information lady and found out that there was a few places to eat on level 3, where you also catch the air train, BART, to get to the rental car area. On we went.
Our intial thought was that we'd wait for Conor in the eating area. I was a bit peckish not having eaten since dinner the night before so, bought a bowl of SouthWestern Corn Chowder soup and a piece of sourdough bread for a quick bite. We saw quite a few people enjoying soup throughout the terminal which is what gave me the hankering to have some myself. Was excellent! Both Rosie and I enjoyed some before we changed our minds about waiting for Conor in the Terminal and headed over to the BART 'blue line' to make our way to the Rental location.
Having never been through rentals here in San Francisco, we walked over to the Enterprise counter only to be surprised at how long the queue was! Fortunately, I found a sign that had my name on it and proceeded down to level 2 and the Enterprise Plus kiosk. The Enterprise folks now greet you, shake your hand, and really try to make the experience personnel. We lucked out with getting the branch manager, Ryan, to help us pick between 2 nice SUVs. There was a bit of a mix up with the actual rental contract but, because we had a copy with us, he went with it's particulars including: unlimited mileage, one way drop off, all for less than $600! We had the choice of 2 fairly new SUVs to pick from... we went with the black, Buick Enclave, a bigger than mid-size SUV with only 800 miles on it. What a great rental! It was HUGE inside with all the amenities and 2 moon roofs, one in front and one in back, leather seats and the back seats were of 'captain' bucket seat style - perfect. By the time we'd sorted everything out, arranged to just loiter in Enterprise's parking area until waiting for Conor to arrive, it was 1245. Conor's flight had been delayed a bit. His flight landed at ~1315 and after he had landed, Rosie range him up to tell him where we were waiting for him. He'd checked no bags and had all he needed in his backpack. Rosie finally spied him walking towards us in the garage at ~1340 - he looked great! Did some quick greetings, a few photos... and we were out on the road to downtown San Fran by 1345 via Hwy 101N. The GPS, 'Annie', showed us about 12 miles to our hotel: the Fairmont on Nob Hill.
Side note: I had originally booked our rental with National, mostly because of the fact that you can pick the vehicle of your choice based on your Emerald level. They wanted ~$1200 for a one-way drop off and that never did sit well with me at all. Seemed very expensive. They'd quoted me a price of under $400 for a 9 day rental if I dropped it off back at SFO. So, a couple of days before we left New Jersey, I called up Enterprise to see what they could do for me (both National and Enterprise are Dell's corporate preferred partners). Turns out they would rent me an SUV, not just a car, for under $600! Cancelling my National and switching to Enterprise was a no brainer. :-) I really wanted to rent a big convertible but, unfortunately, none were available.
Needless to say we were all very excited to be together in San Francisco. The drive was fairly uneventful, moderate traffic for a Friday along the freeway. I'm always quite surprised at how 'hilly' the topography near and around San Francisco is - not to mention all the water that surrounds the peninsula leading up to the city. No wonder the entire area is referred to as the 'Bay' area. Traffic in San Francisco was just as heavy as any big city I've driven in with the one exception that makes 'Frisco different - the steep hills.
Finally made our way to the front of the Fairmont on Mason St and pulled up to valet parking. Parking in the Fairmont would cost $54/day - that's alot. Unloaded the SUV, gave it over to valet and made our way into the hotel to check in... it's quite grand and impressive. I went straight to the President's Club platinum members line and quickly got our key cards and a map before heading up to our room on the 6th floor, 679. The hotel's gone through many facelifts and survived many an earthquake. It's an old building with vaulted ceilings everywhere but, with all the modern amenities.
Took us longer than normal to get our luggage because I hadn't given our conceirge our room number. Had to call down to get our bags delivered. No worries, gave us enough time to just refresh ourselves before heading out on the town. So much to do, so little time! We attempted to queue up for a cable car ride down to the piers, the Fairmont being at the cross roads of 2 different cable car lines but, the two cars that came by were packed and there were people ahead of us.
So, we decided to hoof it. Wasn't that bad since the walk was all downhill and about 1 1/2 miles to the waterfront. We decided to target Fisherman's Wharf on Pier 39. The last time we visited we had pleasant memories of the wharf including seeing all of the sealions sunning themselves on floating piers made specifically for their use.
Well, we certainly didn't remember all of the build-up that's gone on since our last visit. Wasn't too much of a surprise to Conor. He'd been there in the not to distant past on CSUN travel. It was good having him to help us navigate around. My good friend, Russell, has turned me into a Hard Rock Cafe fan and I try really hard to visit them in those cities that have one in order to purchase pins and the occasional t-shirt. Turns out the Hard Rock in 'Frisco is right at the entrance to Pier 39! How convenient. :-) Since we were all a bit peckish, decided to eat lunch in the Cafe. Conor and I had their classic hamburgers and Rosie enjoyed the big sampler appetizer we ordered. We also enjoyed our first shared beverage together and enjoyed toasting our upcoming adventure.
The day was gorgeously blue, a bit on the cool side - no complaints - and very windy. We walked the length of the pier. Some of the vendors looked familiar, including the fresh fruit and veggie vendor we purchased cherries from last time we visited and, many of the shops didn't look familiar at all. Time does tend to place a veil of fuzziness on one's memories. Spent time at the end of the pier lamenting about the absence of sea lions. There was only 1 platform that had any on it. The rest were empty. We would find out later that a few years back, all the sea lions as a group just jumped off and left for Seattle! The Marine biologists still don't know why. We took alot of photos of the remaining sea lions, some of San Francisco including our hotel and, Alcatraz Island before reversing our path back along and off of Fisherman's Wharf.
From the Wharf I'd mentioned to Conor that I'd never visited the WWII boats moored a couple of piers away so, we headed over to go tour at least the submarine. Along the way we took a short pause to stop into Boudin's Sour Dough shop for bread. Conor'd been craving some of their famous leavened product for quite some time so, we had Rosie buy us some. I also had a double expresso because I was starting to feel the effects of very little sleep and 3 hours of time change. Felt more energized afterwards and the sourdough was excellent.
If I recall correctly, both the submarine, USS Pampanito (SS-383), a Balao Class fleet submarine and, the liberty ship, SS Jeremiah O'Brien, are moored at Pier 45. Both ships served with distinction in WWII with the submarine seeing action in the Pacific while the liberty ship actually took part in the D-Day landing at Normandy in 1944. Back in the day, over 18 shipyards built over 2700 liberty ships between 1941 and 1945, an incredible feat and demonstration of American Industrial might during wartimes! Only 2 remain today as floating museums - the other is the SS John W. Brown. If we had more time would have made our way to the SS Jeremiah O'Brien. On this day we were quite pleased with touring the USS Pampanito. One boards the submarine via gangplank and make your way aft to descend into the aft torpedo room. From there you head forward getting a very good sense of the cramped living conditions aboard a WWII submarine before ending in the forward torpedo room and exiting through the hatch that was used to onboard her torpedoes.
The pier that both WWII museum ships are moored at has a very large building on it that houses one of the oldest arcade gaming devices I've ever seen. Conor was quite keen to get back in there to play some of the games and just show us around. Just way different and very cool to see what games from a bygone era looked like and played compared with the high tech arcade game of today. Spent a good 30mins inside the arcade before leaving to find the cable car turnabout near Ghiradelli's.
By the time we found the Powel & Hyde St cable car turnabout, it was ~1745. The wind was still blowing 15-25kts and it was getting downright chilly and we weren't dressed for it. The turnabout had quite the line of folks waiting to hop on for a ride back to wherever. You can purchase your tickets at a booth right there. If I recall correctly, 3 1-way tickets cost us $18. Took quite awhile to make our way around the turnabout as each cable car that came in got manually turned on a turn table to point back in the right direction for travel. Each car can take a good number of riders - I didn't count how many - including up to 10 riders standing and hanging out of each side of the cable car. Before our turn, Rosie ran up to one of the street vendors on the street facing Ghiradelli's and bought us some $10 clothing to put on. Wouldn't have been too bad had there been no wind. After almost an hour and a half wait, we finally jumped into our car for the ride back up to Nob Hill and the Fairmont.
This was our first ride ever on a San Franciso cable car! I'm not sure what I was expecting of the ride but, it wasn't at all like I'd envisioned it was going to be. Unlike the Rice-a-Roni commercials and their addictive commercial jingle Rosie and I remember from years gone by, a few things stick out to me, namely: how noisy the ride actually is and, how quickly the cable car can move uphill getting pulled by an unseen underground cable that wends for miles below the streets of the city. I'm glad we did it... not to mention the fact that I was not looking forward to walking back up hill to the hotel at all! We reached our destination, jumped off at the hotel and made it back to our room by 1930.
We weren't that hungry but decided to go check out the restaurant/bar just off the lobby anyway. We took a look at the menu and weren't overly impressed. So, ended up just ordering drinks. Beers for Conor and I and wine for Rosie. Rosie was fading fast and didn't finish her drink before retiring up to our room for bed around 2130. Conor and I stayed and enjoyed a couple more drinks just chatting and catching up on many subjects before we called it a night and headed up to our room for the evening at ~2230. I made time to download all of the photos of the day before hitting the rack myself.
What a Great 1st Day in Northern California!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)