Tourin' Over California 2017 - Day 6 Journey to Monterey

[Birtie]

18 July

We woke about 7 am with the air con unit in the room dripping. Then the air con went off and the fan stopped, there had been a power cut. We had donuts and orange juice for breakfast- Megan had white choc macadamia cookie and Nutella bread sticks. It was then time to load the car and get on the road – we put our wet trainers in the boot to dry.

We hadn’t gone far when we had a mum and baby deer crossing road in front of us.

We stopped at Mariposa for petrol, which looked the typical American town you would see in a movie. I had a bit of a performance putting petrol in, having to gone into the shop to pre-pay, I then went back in as the pump still didn’t seem to be working, although I was assured it was.

Back on the road we could see a cloud of smoke in distance and about 7 fire engines from different regions passed us on their way to fire and there was also a helicopter flying around.

We were driving with fruit and veg fields on either side of the road again, until we got on the CA152 and the road became straight and long

We stopped at a town called Los Banos for Starbucks and I being slightly short of hearing mistook the server asking if I wanted a receipt, for where we are going so I answered with "we're going to Monterey" leaving the barista thinking okayyyy.

We continued our journey over the mountains and down to the coast to Red Roof Inn Monterey

Leaving the bags in the room we were ready for food, so walked a couple of blocks to subway. After lunch we drove to Fishermans Wharf where I put all the change I had into the parking machine which gave us until 5.28.

We had a look round Fishermans Wharf including seeing the restaurant where they had filmed Big Little Lies.

We walked along the front to Cannery Row seeing harbour seals in the water on the way.

It was 5pm when we got there so we decided to catch the trolley back to make it in time for the car park.

The trolley was supposed to be every 10-15 minutes, but we ended up waiting over 1/2 hour for it to come. One of the people waiting in the queue was a local, who advised that there had been an accident and that was what was causing the delay. The trolley eventually came and everyone piled on. We were lucky and got seats.

It ended up being a 1/2 hour trip due to traffic jams - by which time we had gone over on our parking by 40 minutes. We rushed back to the car park, expecting to find a ticket - unfortunately we were right - but we had been fined $35 for not displaying a ticket, not for being over time – our ticket must have fallen down when we closed the door, so wasn’t visible in the window!

We left and headed back to the hotel, where I went online and lodged an appeal about the fine.

We headed out for tea over to the Black Bear Diner which we had seen earlier. As soon as we walked in we were faced with a display of cakes and pies - all looking absolutely gorgeous but at that point, we didn't know whether we would have room for them!

We were shown to our table - a nice big booth and the menus were newspapers- nice touch.

We were asked for our choice of soup or salad. Tracey and chose salad and Megan had chicken noodle soup.

Megan ordered chicken parmigiana and a side of corn. Tracey had tri tip combo with sides of onion rings and corn.

I ordered sirloin with sides of fries and onion rings.

Tracey and I were too full for dessert. Megan decided to have the lava cake - pretty much like a chocolate fondant. Needless to say she didn't finish it and I had to help out.

Day 7 here

[Tweety1]

Oh no hope you got the fine sorted

[Birtie]

Yes it was waived