Wandering around the West Coast - Day 9 - 17 Mile Drive, Carmel and dinner in Monterey

**jocat** · 2 Sep 17, 01:11 PM

Index is here.

Day 9 – Wednesday 2nd August 2017

We didn't set the alarm today and I woke at around 8:30 am. Martin had already been awake for over an hour. We just lazed in bed for a while, then FaceTimed home to speak to our daughter who was going on holiday the next day.

We eventually got up and jumped in the shower, but wasn't ready to leave the hotel until roughly 11am. While I was blow-drying my hair, Martin tried to go around the corner to Wild Plum Cafe to pick up some breakfast, but we'd left it a bit late as they had very little left. He picked up a couple of prepackaged apple danishes from the gas station at the end of the road, but they were absolutely vile. One bite out of mine and it ended up in the bin. Hopefully lunch would be early today!

The plan was to look around the Monterey coastline, do 17 Mile Drive and then visit Carmel. As we left our hotel, we noticed a French bakery on the way. We stopped off there and bought two ham salad petit pains.

It wasn't long until we'd started on our lunch, and the emergency Pringles were opened too! No photos I'm afraid as I forgot.

We started around the Monterey area, enjoying all of the views at the stops we made.

Anyone know what this is, that we spotted peeking out of the ground?

We soon spotted a sign for 17 Mile Drive, so joined the small queue to pay our entrance fee.

We really enjoyed the drive today. There's lots of beautiful view points, with plenty of parking spots at them too.

When we were near Bird Rock, we noticed something in the water a little bit further up the coast, that we couldn't work out what it was. It turned out to be a dead humpback whale, with barnacles across its body. It was just so sad. It wasn’t clear initially if it was dead or stranded, as the movement of the water made it appear as if it was alive. My notes say that I couldn’t believe it had just been left there. I’d tried to Google it to check if anybody had reported it, but had no signal at that point. When we were a bit further around 17 Mile Drive, my signal came back and I discovered its body had washed up there a few days earlier. Thankfully all signs had pointed to a death by natural causes and not anything untoward. I’d been worried that it had got trapped there and died before it could be released back to deeper water.

We found ourselves at The Lodge at Pebble Beach, so stopped off looking for a drink. The first place we found was The Tap Room. We sat at the bar and wondered how much our two diet cokes might cost here! It looked a very expensive place.

We went to find the restrooms before we left and found this fabulous view!

Once back on the road, we decided to come off at the Carmel exit and drove along the scenic road by the coast.

We struggled to park, so then drove to the town centre, parked up and browsed in a few shops. We left empty handed though. I took a shine to this lovely house with a fantastic deck area, that I spotted - didn't like the price tag so much though!

As we were leaving at 4pm we entered a mad 5 way junction with no obvious priority. Have no idea how accidents don't happen, as we struggled to keep an eye on all five roads!

We got back to the hotel at about 4:15 pm, queued at Reception to get some quarters for the laundry (bad idea at checking in time), then sorted the washing into one load to do - the rest could wait until we were back home.

Washing started, we went by the pool for a while. It was around 5pm by this time but the sun was still warm - I actually moved into a shadier spot twice, in between going back to the laundry room to change the washing into the dryer, but still caught the sun on one arm, despite my SPF30 sun cream.

Once back in the room with our dry washing, we rearranged our packing cubes and cases, so that everything we needed for the next few days was in the same case, then relaxed for an hour before getting showered and changed for dinner. We'd been a little unsure where to go in the Cannery Row area for dinner, but after browsing online we discovered the Whaling Station had good reviews, and we were able to reserve a table through OpenTable for just an hour later.
As we pulled up in the car park, we could partially see a beautiful looking sunset across the car park. I’m sure it would have been even better to see an uninterrupted view from the coast itself.

We received a very warm welcome at the restaurant and were seated near the window. I was given the wine and cocktail list for some reason - Martin insisted that they must know me and questioned whether I’d been there before! I somehow had completely missed the dinner menu underneath it.

I spotted a raspberry lemon drop cocktail on the menu and that was the one for me. I have a bit of a weakness for fruity, vodka-based cocktails. Before we ordered our food, a waiter brought round a tray of steaks, to show all the various cuts that they do.

Martin ordered the French onion soup to start, followed by the filet mignon and I ordered the chicken served with mushrooms. Both were delicious. Mine was the juiciest chicken I'd ever had.

As I hadn't ordered a starter, I looked at the dessert menu and went for the creme brûlée. Luckily they brought two spoons because it was huge, and we still didn't finish it.

We left $150 inclusive of tip. The service from our waiter had been fantastic - he really took an interest in our trip, and we had some great chats about the Monterey area and Yosemite, as well as his home country of Thailand.

After dinner, we drove through Cannery Row and back to our hotel.

Melbatb · 2 Sep 17, 04:44 PM

Another fabulous day - so many beautiful views.

How sad about the whale

Dinner looks lovely!

**LLKJDisney** · 2 Sep 17, 04:52 PM

what a great day...and some beautiful pictures

**tocpe321** · 2 Sep 17, 08:26 PM

Another great day with some brilliant photos.

Meal looks very nice. I love creme brûlée.

Wismgari · 2 Sep 17, 09:27 PM

Great day! It all looks stunning, I cannot wait to see it all myself.

Did I miss it... How much were the cokes?!

Pussycat Doll · 3 Sep 17, 12:20 PM

Totally loving your trippie! More fabulous photos and food with the odd cocktail, absolutely my kind of holiday! We often buy sarnies from places and eat them anywhere we happen to be!

**WileyCoyote** · 3 Sep 17, 09:45 PM

Great day, spectacular views, lovely food and sunshine ... Perfect !

Jake71 · 3 Nov 17, 10:58 PM

What a lovely day with some beautiful scenery. Shame about the humpback but at least it was natural causes.

miss_mouse · 21 Aug 18, 07:10 AM

That little creature is a groundhog 😊

**jocat** · 21 Aug 18, 08:37 AM

Originally Posted by Melbatb

Another fabulous day - so many beautiful views.

How sad about the whale

Dinner looks lovely!

I loved today, with the exception of the whale.

Originally Posted by Jakes Mom

what a great day...and some beautiful pictures

Thank you. We did have a great day.

Originally Posted by tocpe321

Another great day with some brilliant photos.

Meal looks very nice. I love creme brûlée.

Thanks. The meal was lovely. We only ever have creme brûlée on holiday - they always seem to do it very well.

Originally Posted by Wismgari

Great day! It all looks stunning, I cannot wait to see it all myself.

Did I miss it... How much were the cokes?!

You’ll love it.

I actually have no idea how much the cokes were, as I’d gone off in hunt of the restrooms while Martin paid. However, it can’t have been too bad or else he’d have told me.

Originally Posted by Pussycat Doll

Totally loving your trippie! More fabulous photos and food with the odd cocktail, absolutely my kind of holiday! We often buy sarnies from places and eat them anywhere we happen to be!

Thanks you. That bakery was soooo good! We went back.

Originally Posted by WileyCoyote

Great day, spectacular views, lovely food and sunshine ... Perfect !

Thanks Amanda. It was a really lovely day.

Originally Posted by Jake71

What a lovely day with some beautiful scenery. Shame about the humpback but at least it was natural causes.

It was so sad to see the whale there.

Originally Posted by miss_mouse

That little creature is a groundhog 😊

Ooh, thank you. I had absolutely no idea what it was.

I did enjoy watching it though.

2 Sep 17, 08:26 PM	#4
	2 Sep 17, 08:26 PM tocpe321 VIP Dibber ✓Premium Member
tocpe321 VIP Dibber Join Date: Apr 12	Another great day with some brilliant photos. Meal looks very nice. I love creme brûlée. __________________ tocpe