Yesterday morning, we got out of our hotel here in Monterey at around 11, making our way to a cafe & bakery that our guidebook recommended. We were a little too early for lunch, but had solid breakfasts.
Unfortunately, after the perfect beach weather on Sunday, yesterday was cloudy and cold, a good day for a light jacket, shorts and some flip-flops.
Instead of heading towards the water, we followed another one of our guidebook’s recommendations: the Dennis the Menace Park — a big playground designed by the comic’s creator, Hank Ketchum. Lonely Planet built it up to be a little more ridiculous than it was, but it was still a pretty cool playground. We rode the swings, tumbled down the slides, climbed the big train at the front — it was a sight to see, pictures to come soon.
Having finished running around, we made our way to Monterey’s most notable attraction, the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Had some pretty cool exhibits, a good way to pass a couple of hours.
We walked along Cannery Row afterwards, the town’s waterfront street with restaurants and shops. Wandered for a little while, stopped off at a store of hot sauces, before heading to our next stop: an indoor mini-golf course, where we battled it out over 18 holes of black light putt putt.
We all made enemies, including me with a shark on hole 5, and Chris with an octopus windmill, but the best had to be John’s drive off the head of this otter that almost took out Justin. A seemingly simple hole, John picked up and took the 6.
A little hungry after our childhood adventures, we made our way to McDonald’s for, yes, happy meals — though we ended up getting the “Mighty Kids” meals, since those had double cheeseburgers. Sadly, they did not think we needed the toys.
We decided to then make our way to nearby Carmel, taking the longer, 17-mile scenic route, that wound along the coastline and past the Pebble Beach golf course. Chris and I were amused, John and Justin were pretty unexcited.
Driving around Carmel, we looked for a hotel, but couldn’t find anything reasonable, so we returned to the same place back in Monterey. We grabbed dinner at the Mucky Duck downtown — no relation to the one Justin and I have been to in Captiva — before coming back here and calling it a night.
This morning, Chris mentioned that he’s still tired, that the playground took a lot out of him. Justin’s response: “Nothing like a 100-mile drive at 25 MPH to cure that.”
Today, we’re heading down through Big Sur — a scenic, slow, winding drive down Highway 1. Not much until we get to Cambria at the end later this afternoon, where we’ll probably settle for the night. That’ll put us close to Hearst Castle if we choose to do that tomorrow, before making our way to San Luis Obispo on Wednesday night.
The Phallic Road Trip 