Day 19 - Monterey

Date 7/8

Weather: Sunny

Expense
$13 lunch
$43 aquarium fee
$56 today
$817 for the trip

Mileage: 300 today, 3,438 for the trip

Beer: 2 today, 24 for the trip

Pictures: homepage.mac.com/cenya/PhotoAlbum56.html

I went out for another short run in the morning. I felt much pain on my shins again. I am guessing the culprit is my running shoes. I am not sure.

My sister got today off, because her office is moving. Fortune lent us a chance to do something together. My sis wanted to go on a road trip to Monterey. I was more than happy to oblige. We walked over to where we parked my car four days ago.

We drove on 101 to Monterey. My sister is a little speed demon. I kept reminding her how fast she was driving. I think she got annoyed some. I am not sure why. May be she was driving my car or I feel comfortable telling her how to drive. I realized that I was acting a little stupid. I tried not to tell her about her driving, but she did mention that I was scoring how she was driving. I give her a 7! Ha ha!

We went straight to the visitor center for tourist information. I also took care of nature’s call. Mm, I felt lighter. We went to a local Mexican eatery. It was like Chipotle, but chips and salsa were free. Mm, free chips and salsa. The food portions were quite large, but I am always up for a challenge. I should’ve refrained in retrospect. C’est la vie.

We both felt like a nap was in order, so we drove to a park by the shore. I took pictures of sea lions or seals. I am not quite sure. My puny camera with 3x zoom could not capture seals (or sea lions) close enough. I found myself navigating rocks to get closer with my sister’s encouragement. I am not sure but I think she called me names from wuss category.

We took a nap for about an hour or little more. Thank God, she brought a blanket or no nap. It was such a nice sunny day. There were so many people out enjoying a great weather. In fact, we moved the blanket to a shady location.

We went to Monterey Aquarium after the nap. It was quite expensive I thought, but I am already in Monterey. I paid for both of us. It is the least I can do. The aquarium had not changed much since I was there in 1995. It was nice to see such a great aquarium. It was well packed in, but no problem navigating through. Only real bad spots are the kiddy areas. I tried to move through those areas quickly. We enjoyed all the exhibits, but my sister was especially fond of jellyfish. We took so many pictures but it is hard to take good pictures of moving objects. I ended up trashing many of my digital photos.

We drove back to SF using Pacific High Way 1. It is such a beautiful scenic drive. We stopped at a beach area, where many kite surfers out and about. They were using parachute like kites and surfed the ocean. It was awesome. My sister and I watched and walked around the beach for a while. We also found a dead and decomposed sea lion. Ah, the circle of life.

As we got closer to SF, fog started to roll in. Visibility was getting quite bad. That is one way to slow my sister. Ha ha. We were planning our dinner while driving back. I really wanted to get some good seafood, especially mussels. My sister was keen on trying Poufs for mussels, but also wanted to go to House of Nanking. We decided to do small meals at each place. It sounded great at the time.

We found a free parking near Trans America building once we got in the city. Unfortunately, there was a line that was quite long outside of House of Nanking. We walked over to Poufs, a French restaurant. It was funny how waiters were dressed like sea crew from a bad pirate movie. The waiters wore baggy shirts with horizontal stripes. I felt like saying, “Arrrrrgh.” We ordered one serving of mussels with bacon and cream. They were delicious. We used bread to consume the delicious juice with bacon and cream. Mm. I had a glass of Anchor Steam to go with dinner. Double mm.

We tried House of Nanking one more time. I guess Fridays are not the days to try to just walk into the House. We drove back and park at a nearby paid parking since I decided to leave next day.

A couple of hours later, my sister’s law school friend dropped in with her boyfriend. Girls had some wine and boys drank Abbey ale. We chatted about SF politics a little. I did not know SF was a city and a county. We decided against going out tonight. Okay, I vetoed it like a good old man.