This Masterpiece motel continues to impress! Fresh orange juice, hot chocolate, and even hard-boiled eggs and cinnamon chelsea bread for breakfast!
When we were packed and done, we left +-9:30am (that's pretty early based on our track record) and topped up on gasoline at the AM/PM. It cost $2.99 a gallon, and it's all self-service. When I asked for help in the station shop the lady almost fell over!
Fuel-drenched and summarily humbled by how much we take for granted in South Africa, I proceeded to use the change from the gas cash deposit (no credit here!) to purchase my next big American delicacy, a corn dog. On special for 79c, I enjoyed a cheesy jalapeno corn dog on a stick. I have to admit it was pleasantly good, but again I fear the oily snack would reduce my lifespan by several decades! As a rare novelty, it's a bargain at 79c!
We checked out the big rock in Morro Bay which we've now learnt is actually an extinct volcano and a bird sanctuary. We saw some pelicans and watched the waves crashing against a man-made jetty (the site resembles the ending scene in Jaws 2, because there's an electrical power station out in the water, etc. ). It was a beautiful sight and the weather was warm and sunny. The locals are mostly surfers or fishermen it turns out, and we saw a lot of the former while we were at the extinct volcano rock.
Beautiful views all the way - just such a pity our camera wasn't up to scratch :(
Americans tend to exaggerate. There aren't ANY waves here!
By "intermittent" they must mean "never"...
Oh, no, wait... there's a wave.
Ah. Another one. Okay, I get the message.
These two people were washed away out to sea.
Beautiful, yes?
Pretty, yes?
Afterwards, we drove on to SAN SIMEAN (30mins away) and paid a polite photograph of Hearst Castle before heading on. Admittedly, the castle looks far more grand than either of us anticipated, and it was just such a pity we haven't the time to tour it for 90 minutes. A great reason to come back sometime though! If you're not familiar with the Hearst dynasty, simply google for W. R. HEARST or PATTY HEARST for a heads up.
If only we had a better camera - this one almost fails to capture the gentle mist in the distance.
A little further down (erm, up) we came across a viewing site for elephant seals. There were hosts of people present and when we arrived I could see what all the fuss was about. You see, mid-December to late February the once-endangered elephant seal colonies land on shore in this area to breed and give birth to pups. A tell-tale sign of the birthing is seagulls and pelicans loitering about to eat the afterbirth. When we climbed out of the car, in the distance (far away), I could still make out a bull (I think that's the male term?) lumbering along the beach. At almost 2.5 tons these beasts are HUGE! We spent almost an hour admiring pups, mommies, and daddies. We were even treated to males sparring, and one male "having his way" with a female, and while we were there, TWO pups were born! We stuck around for as long as we could but eventually had to go on if we had any hope of making Monterey Aquarium.
Two females chatting.
We pulled over at Ragged Point for chilli-beef soup ($5) and a burger ($6) and admired another amazing vista of the Pacific ocean coastline.
We enjoyed over 180 degree views pretty much all the way
Beauty...
Delicious!
Shot from the car while moving.
The mist seemed to envelope the cliffsides.
The drive up to Monterey Bay from San Simean is absolutely magnificent. We were told it's worth the drive by fellow tourists, and the locals tout it as the most beautiful thing to see in the US, but it takes a lot to convince us, and having done the drive ourselves, we can believe what others have been telling us all along. Imagine Chapman's Peak, and then multiply it by fifty. The entire drive is pretty much ON the coast, and you're elevated enough of the time to have an almost 180 degree ocean view, and the crashing waves and mystical sea mists against the towering California cliffs makes for stunning scenery. There are moments where the road is literally the last man-made structure before a sheer drop into the ocean below, and this hair-raising experience is completely overshadowed by the breathtaking views. It takes quite a lot to impress me, but even I was blown away by what we saw. It was such a pity that we couldn't stop more often or spend longer, but we still aimed to make the Monterey aquarium in enough time to explore it.
Add to this the fact that a few years ago BLUE WHALES were sighted almost on shore, and you can understand why this section of the country is so engrossing. When you look out to the west, you see almost more ocean than sky, and it never grows old!! Pelicans, elephant seals, blue whales... What more could one want? It didn't take long on the drive for Kat to decide a beach house on the Pacific coast would do nicely!
We arrived in Monterey Bay just before 4pm and after finding some parking, our first spot of blessing happened; a couple were leaving and said we could take their parking bay since they still had over an hour of parking paid for! Score! We topped it up to 2 hours and 30 minutes (the aquarium closes at 6pm, plus we have some leeway) and went inside. For each of us it was $30 but we discovered it closed at 5pm!! I told the girl behind the desk (Karina) of our dilemma - we had flown from SA to be in the US and had driven up the coast specifically to visit the aquarium AND the time on the brochure said 6pm. She admitted the times had changed because of winter but because we had come from Africa, she and her friend (who's married to someone from Morocco) decided to let us in for free (the alternative was a free ticket for the next day but we pointed out we wouldn't be around the area tomorrow)! What a blessing - free access for almost an hour whereas it should have cost us $60! Second blessing :)
We had a good time inside, racing through the kelp forest feeding, the sea otters, the jellyfish habitat, and the sea horse displays, before heading out and buying a fudge almond ice cream and me sampling my second US delicacy of the day (clam chowder; it was okay, but if I had a choice, I'd choose something else). FYI - the clam chowder was literally a free sample!
This aquarium is supposed to be the "best in the world", and to live up to this reputation they have hoisted live whales from the ceiling. This poor critter was starving and begging for food :(
We drove on to SAN FRANCISCO (SFO) but when Kat almost drove us straight into a freeway flyover barrier at 65mph, I took over the driving (I noticed she was heading straight towards a sharp right turn without slowing or turning). GPS was too slow and we ended up missing our turn and migrating over the Bay Bridge. Man oh man that's a long bridge! It was so long in fact, that I suspected it was Golden Gate bridge, but it turns out my naivety on the subject of San Francisco is greater than I thought!
According to GPS it detoured us 90 minutes (original ETA was 7:30pm, new ETA was 9pm), but we discovered the GPS was avoiding toll gates. Pulling a U-turn and paying the $4 toll, we got back into San Francisco within ten minutes and tried to find our hotel. We got lost a few times because the GPS got confused (it seemed to spin around a lot and also be one street behind where we actually were), but I did get to "enjoy" a hill start on the steepest hill I've ever seen (these hills in SFO are steep, and LONG), and also drove on the tram-lines :)
We eventually sorted out our parking slot for the rental and walked to our hotel, the Chancellor at Union Square. We had to fill up with gas and we hunted for a long while for a gas station but eventually found one and it was $3.14 a gallon, so it wasn't too much more than Morro Bay! This time around I filled up like a pro (and automatic pumping too)...
On the way to the hotel we saw more than five beggars (mostly all white), and a looney guy who just roared at people (earlier I had almost driven over a loon who walked straight in front of me, squealed, and released a bunch of balloons and ran away).
We are situated in a prime spot right next to BORDERS (aah, a bevvy of books), MACY*S, SAKS, TIFFANY'S and BLOOMINGDALES.
We had supper down the road, with Kat having Chinese for $9 and me a pizza slice and coke $9. We were approached by even more beggars and we decided to walk three blocks down to give the first beggar we saw in SFO our leftovers. Unable to find him, we gave a trio of beggars our food, and they gladly accepted it. They then asked if I'd give them my wife, at which point I got aggressively defensive, so we left promptly to avoid problems.
SFO seems to be a beautiful city but it's full of weirdo's. There was a very angry beggar woman throwing her packet of stuff around and cackling and crowing angrily at people.
Time for sleep now, and we'll see what we can tackle for Kat's last official day of holiday tomorrow!
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