Automatic Pilot

Oh, how I desperately wanted to climb into my car, set the destination for Davis, turn the car on, and go to sleep.

I was feeling very smug yesterday morning.  I had fixed myself a "couch" on the hotel bed, using my suitcase and one of the pillows to lie against, and feel like the couch here at home.

And it worked.  Except for waking up once in the middle of the night, I slept nearly 8 hours.  It was wonderful.

I fully expected the same thing to happen last night as well.   But we were exhausted when we got home from dinner and while I sat down to write my journal entry, Lynn went to bed.  By the time I got my entry posted, it was only 9:30 and Lynn was sleeping with a blanket over her head to shut out the light.  I turned off the computer and the lights and got into bed myself.

I did go to sleep after listening to my book for an hour or so, but when I woke up at 2 a.m., I was wide awake.  Wide awake.  I tried listening to my book until I got sleepy, but I never did.  I finally turned off the book and tried to get back to sleep, but instead lay on my back staring at the ceiling wondering when it would be morning.  I never did get back to sleep.

When we both woke up, I think we were talked out, finally, because neither of us said much of anything, going through our morning ablutions pretty much in silence. 

I had suggested we go to Grandma's Kitchen for breakfast.  This was a place that I had seen on the Internet before and which had been recommended by the women I'd talked with the day before.  Having no other restaurant we had discussed, we went to Grandma's kitchen.

We had a bit of a problem with Tildy (the GPS), who took us to the wrong end of Fremont Street.  It really wasn't her fault, though we suspected she'd had a night of drinking herself.  The web address was on Fremont Street and didn't indicate that it was really NORTH Fremont Street.  The GPS gave us the option of two Fremont Streets, but did not indicate that one was North (not that we would have known which one to choose anyway).  Instead of driving to the location, which was quite close to our hotel, we drove all over Monterey before we finally found it.

Whoever started Grandma's Kitchen is a real lover of owls.   The restasurant itself is your standard run of the mill diner, with metal and linoleum tables, booths, and a counter at the front (with a "beware of Attack Waitress" sign posted).  But the walls are lined with owl kitch.  Pictures, statues, macrame, paintings, etc., etc., etc.

The food was standard diner fare but delicious.  We both had scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns.

The hash browns were perfect, as was everything else.  Lynn had toast, I had biscuits.  The biscuits were obviously home made and there were two of them, but though they were delicious, they were more "solid" than light and fluffy and even I, the biscuit lover, could not finish one, let alone two of them.

After breakfast, we drove back to the hotel, checked out, packed up the rest of our stuff and headed for the parking lot.  We said our goodbyes and promised to do it again ... maybe in another six months.  Next time we plan to include our friend Lisa, who said she would love to spend a weekend with us (I've been kicking myself that I didn't ask her to join us this time!)

Then onto the road.  I had planned to stop in Castroville, the self proclamed Artichoke Center of the World.

I wanted to buy some local artichokes and stopped at The Big Artichoke, where I remember having lunch with Cousin Nora, on her first visit to the United States, from Ireland a long time ago.  We are all huge artichoke lovers in this family.  On that trip was the first (and only) time I'd ever had fried artichokes, and I see that they are still serving them.

 Nora didn't think much of artichokes in any fashion whatsoever.   I was reminded of an old Little Rascals movie where Buckwheat is served an artichoke, which he had never seen before.  After removing lots of leaves, trying to find sometehing in it to eat, he said "It may have choked Artie, but it ain't gonna choke me."  

I did buy some artichokes for dinner tonight, and also some tangerines to eat on the road (since I was completely out of money and knew that I could not stop for lunch, even though I was so stuffed from breakfast, I didn't see that as being a necessity!)

The ride home was rough.  I finally did stop for a hamburger I didn't want, just to wake up.  I counted out quarters and made sure that I could pay for the cheapest Jack-in-the-Box plain cheeseburger.  I knew I didn't have enough money to stop for my old sure-fire picker-upper, a McDonald's iced mocha.   But the burger did its stuff and for most of the rest of the drive, I was OK, though the last 10 miles or so were difficult.

I got home, climbed into the recliner, checked the mail and passed out for a couple of hours.  

So the longed-for weekend is finally over.  It was such fun and I'm so glad we had the time together.  I look forward to doing it again!

Thanks so much, Lynn!!

Did We Have Fun?

I told Lynn it was time for me to write about our day and find out if we had fun or not. (SPOILER ALERT:  we did!)

Lynn wasn't sure how the day was going to go when first the coffee maker wouldn't work and we had to order a new one from the front desk, and then the ironing board (I've heard that some women use these things) collapsed literally on her and she ended up ironing her pants on the board, on the floor).

However, in spite of these mishaps, we decided she could drive today because of her GPS, Tildy.  I've come to really love her new Accura.

We had looked on line for a place to have a nice Sunday brunch and I came to a place called First Awakenings and we both agreed this was "our place" based solely on this snippet of a review on Yelp by a customer named Michael, who seemed particularly enamored by a menu item called "All that Razz," which is a raspberry pancake with coconut and granola.  Of this dish, Michael says: "The pancake was also crazy good.  Even with the raspberries, granola and coconut, it was amazingly light and fluffy.  It tasted and felt exactly like baby angels were flapping their tiny wings inside my mouth."  Now how can you not want to taste that?

What we didn't realize until we got there was that it was located one block from the Aquarium, our next stop after breakfast.  Serendipity.

We both did have All That Razz and yes, baby angels flapped their tiny wings inside our mouths.

Trust me.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  You'll just have to come here and try it!

Next it was off to the Aquarium, where we spent about 3 hours.  Oh my...this was worth the nearly 30 year wait.  I feared that since we were coming on a Sunday it would be mobbed...and it did get more crowded around noon, but entering at about 10 a.m., when they opened, we had zero problem with crowds anywhere.  We watched the penguins being fed, 

saw the magnificent kelp forest,

and saw so many things but we both agreed that our favorites were the sea horses and the jellyfish.  (I said I wanted to be a jellyfish--brainless, heartless, but beautiful!)  I particularly liked this odd seahorse, which looks like a creature from a Dr. Seuss book.

I have so many incredible pictures, but I will put them all on Flickr when I get home rather than fill up this journal entry.

There were also many things purchased for the grandkids.  Fortunately I had texted Tom "otters, penguins or seahorses?" and he texted back "seahorses!" That made it easier.

We wandered around Cannery Row for a bit, agreeing that John Steinbeck would not recognize it today!  After coffee and a purchase of a Steinbeck book for Lynn ("Cannery Row") we came back to the hotel where we sat in the lobby looking at the ocean.

Lynn went off on a far too energetic walk along the beach while I stayed where I was, watching the ocean and finishing my book.  But I was also talking to two women I overheard reading comments from the internet about the place we had eaten yesterday and I highly recommended it to them.  They, in turn, told me about the place they had eaten last night, which is right across from where we ate, and said how much they liked it.  Lynn and I decided to go there for dinner.  It's called Domenico's and it was just as great as the women said it had been.  We waited 20 minutes at the bar for a window table, but we were in no hurry and appreciated the chance to have a window table so we could watch the sea lions sleeping on the platform right opposite our table.

It was kind of like San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf in miniature.

Our dinner was fabulous.  I had crab-stuffed prawns, which came topped with caviar and were delicious.

This place may have been my favorite of the weekend...and, oddly enough, it was the cheapest!  I liked it because the waiters were all so friendly.

On the way out we met two women from Perth and chatted with them on the walk back to the parking lot.  Then we stumbled on back here to the hotel.  It is 9 p.m. as I write this and Lynn has been asleep for about 15 minutes.

Tomorrow we have a restaurant picked out for breakfast (also recommended by the women I spoke with this afternoon), and then will be heading back to our respective homes.  It's been a fast weekend, but it's a good thing it's ending because I don't know that I could eat like this for another day!!

And to answer the question I posed at the beginning...yes we had a FABulous time today!!!

Monterey

So here we are in Monterey, Lynn and I.  I can't remember the last time I was here, but it is beautiful as ever. Remembering the last time I saw Lynn is easier.  I visited her a month after she moved to San Diego and she was only there for 3 months, so I last saw her in July of 2012.

We decided to meet in the middle.  She now works in Santa Barbara and it's about a 4-5 hour drive (according to Yahoo) from there and it's about a 3-4 hour drive from Davis.  And we knew this would be a fun town to explore.

I got here shortly after noon and sent her a text saying I couldn't get in the hotel parking lot until she got here and that I was going in search of a bathroom.  By the time I had returned from McDonalds (after nearly killing myself trying to go the wrong way down a street), parked at a beach parking lot next to the hotel, and taken a picture of where we will be for the next two nights, she had already checked in. (She obviously drives faster than I do.)

 Our hotel

We settled into our room and took pictures of the photo shoot that was going on in the hotel pool.  I don't know what this is for, but I did manage to get a picture of the bride and groom as they leaped into the pool! (The guy IN the pool has an underwater camera.)

 We had checked the internet and found a restaurant we wanted to try on Fisherman's Wharf, Old Fisherman's Grotto...I found the Monterey Fisherman's Wharf not all that different from San Francisco's, but fewer junky gift shops.

 

The restaurant was lovely.  The only thing that was a disappointment was that there were no free window seats, but we settled ourselves in with some nice local wine and, of course...

..

This was garlic roasted crab and it was wonderful, as was the couscous that it rested on.

The two of us polished off a whole bottle of Pinot Grigio and a fabulous--one of the best I've tasted--creme brulee.

Then we went walking along the wharf and checked out junky souvenir stand before heading back to the hotel.  I discovered that Tom and Laurel have done exactly what Walt and I did.  They have one child (Brianna) whose name is very easy to find on stuff, and one (Lacie) whose name is impossible to find.  I figure I have about one more year of getting Brianna stuff before I have to stop because Lacie will feel left out!

We are both so stuffed from the huge lunch that we are probably just going to order some hors d'oeuvres from the hotel restaurant, sit by the windows in the lobby and watch the ocean.

 

It's so great to see Lynn again!