Travel Log DAY TWO

On 06/29/07 I started off on a 4 day holiday up to central\northern California. The following is the travel log from the trip, broken up into four chapters. The regular scheduled blog will be back in a couple weeks.

DAY TWO

I woke up at 7 AM Saturday morning. The electricity had gone out in the hotel the night before giving me a bit of the willies. That, coupled with the fact that the area of Salinas I was in would not be considered a nice part of town, got me motivated to shower and get out of the hotel room before 9:30. If Kevin had been with me, we would have been requesting a late checkout. We’re ALWAYS requesting a late checkout due to Kevin’s passion for sleep.

I consult the map before I go and decide to take Hwy 68 back to Monterey. While it’s a bit longer, I felt confident I wouldn’t get lost. I stopped at Starbucks for a coffee and a breakfast sandwich. I resolved then that I would never have a Low Fat Turkey Bacon, Cholesterol-free Egg and Reduced Fat Cheddar sandwich again. Fact of the matter is, some things in life need a bit of salt.


Cannery Row, Monterey

By 10:30 I was in line buying my tickets for the Monterey Aquarium. The line wasn’t too bad and I was roaming around looking at fishies in no time. Everyone had told me how great the Monterey Aquarium was compared against the Long Beach Aquarium. I have to disagree. Both are great in their own way. My personal favorites of the Monterey Aquarium were:

1. The Sardine Swim Circle located above eye level. Awesome. A bunch of sardines swimming around in a circle for what I can only imagine is their whole lives until they die. Swim sardines! Swim!
   
   
   
2. The feeding of the penguins. It took me by surprise to see two humans inside the penguin tank, one of them holding a penguin and petting it like I would pet my own cat under the chin. One of the penguins tried to make a break for it via the door they left open. Sneaky penguin.
   
   
   
3. The aviary.
   
   
   
4. ….and this guy.

The world according to Mr. Turtle.

I was done with the Aquarium around 12:30 PM. By the time I got out, there was a line of people out the door trying to get tickets. I got in my car and got on the 101 up to San Francisco. The drive from Monterey to San Francisco was boring, although I did stop at a Bennigans (to use their facilities, certainly not to eat) down the street from the Yahoo! Headquarters. I feel like I shouldn’t have been that excited about it, but I was.

In San Francisco, I stopped at Tommy’s Joint for lunch. You must always stop at Tommy’s Joint if you are in San Francisco. If you don’t, you’re doing yourself a great disservice. The turkey sandwich (carved straight from the bird) and mashed potatoes were delicious. I bought Kevin a couple t-shirts as he has worn his previous Tommy’s t-shirt thin and never mentioned to Kevin (until I got home) about it. He would have been crazy with jealousy. Tommy’s is just that good.

Tommy's Joint

Afterwards, I suffered the traffic and stopped at the last exit before crossing the Golden Gate Bridge just to take a picture. When I got off the Golden Gate Bridge I stopped again to take a picture from the other side.

From the 101, I took Hwy 37 to Hwy 121 to Hwy 12 and magically did not get lost. I had booked a hotel in Sonoma for the night via Priceline and was once again in awe at the deal I got. The Lodge was more of a spa resort than a hotel and was equipped with not only a bath robe, bath salts, high end shampoo and conditioners, but my own private balcony with French doors looking over the pool. Ahhhh.

I cleaned up a bit and headed downstairs to get on the shuttle to downtown. Since downtown is technically 4 whole blocks, they offered a free service to pick you up as well. The shuttle driver assumed I was with the other 3 groups in the van so when the last person got off and I was still sitting there he finally asked, “Where would you like to go?” He honestly had the look like I intended to stalk him all evening. I told him to just drop me off where there was good food that wasn’t at a fancy place. He opened the van door and pointed two buildings down to Mary’s Pizza Shack. Well, alright then.

At Mary’s Pizza Shack I ordered the Pesto Pasta and a half liter of the house red. I had my Steinbeck book and thought I would be there awhile. The same waitress who took my order brought over two glasses with the wine. I must have looked at her cross-eyed as she stopped in her tracks with the two glasses and said, “oh.” There was a lot of meaning behind that ‘oh’ but I took it in stride, had a great dinner and discovered what might just become one of my favorite books, “Travels with Charley”.

After dinner I walked around the 4 blocks that make up downtown Sonoma and finally stopped at a little Irish pub for a pint and some more reading. I’m assuming that because Sonoma has all of three pubs was the reason why this one was so packed. It was getting warm in there, so after my pint I had the shuttle pick me up, and then resigned to my room where I had a bath to beat all baths. I eventually called up Kevin and we ended up talking for over an hour, though of what about, I have no idea. I missed him. Wine country is definitely a place for couples. Later I fell asleep with the TV on.