MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - The Final Chapter

We've been covering our home state of California with a summer long series of reports up and down the Golden State. That summer long tour concludes today with the finale of our trip to the Monterey Peninsula and the cities of Carmel, Pacific Grove, and Monterey. Hope you had fun on this trip, be sure to let us know via the comment link at the end of the report.

In Part One of our Monterey Peninsula trip, we dodged poison oak to get breathtaking ocean views, had breakfast in a patio across the street from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and walked the streets of Carmel. Now on to part two...

The next morning we have an even better breakfast at Toasties, a comfortable and cozy diner parked in an old house in downtown Pacific Grove on Lighthouse Avenue.

Omelets filled with chorizo and avocado accompanied with silver dollar pancakes, along with French toast for Letty, make a great start to the day.

Monterey Peninsula Video

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Passionfish…our favorite area dinner house…is across the street. Tim, having heard us rave about it for years, says he wouldn’t mind giving it a try.

This is a surprise as Tim would not usually volunteer to eat at a mainly seafood restaurant.

Our plan today was to go to the fair and load up on the fair food as our lunch and dinner. This throws a happy kink into our plans as I was lamenting not being able to eat there this trip.

“If I can get a reservation, we’ll go for dinner,” I tell Tim and Letty.

Walking across the street, I see there’s no one inside. There’s not a phone number printed on the sign or the menu posted on the door. Should we just try our luck later…on a Saturday night…to see if they have a table available?  Sounds very iffy to me.

Letty goes to a stand of newspaper machines nearby and pulls out one of the local freebie flyers. We’re in luck…Passionfish has an ad in it with their phone number.

Driving off to the fair, I call the number and leave a reservation request on their voice mail.

We get to the fairgrounds about a half hour before opening at noon. Even now, there is no parking available at all. Probably due to the fact that this facility has no parking lot…it’s all adjacent street parking.

Remote parking is available…with a wheelchair accessible shuttle too…but we could not find any confirmation at the time that the shuttle was available. We end up parking about a quarter mile away on a side street and walk in.

The fairgrounds here are small, a long narrow strip about two blocks long. There are exhibit buildings and a kids carnival at one end, a lot of food and drink booths clustered around the entrance in the middle, and the animal exhibits, the main carnival, and an arena at the other end.

The arena, quiet while we’re there, is also home of the historic Monterey Jazz Festival which has featured some great performances over the years including Jimi Hendrix’s historic performance back in the 60’s.

After watching a local dance troupe perform, we wander around a few exhibit buildings ending up at the Agriculture building where, in  addition to seeing blue ribbon winning produce, there’s a farmers market stand where you can actually buy the produce…pretty cheaply too!

I get a quartered navel orange in a plastic bag for a quarter. Nearby is a table giving away samples of berries.  Strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries…all very delicious and, even better, free.

Back in the mid section, the local high school wrestling team sells fried calamari. It’s sort of a famous tradition here at this fair. I’m not a seafood lover but I buy some for Tim and Letty, who seem to really like it. I try a piece, just to shut them up. It’s good…really good.  I want more. It’s some of the best fair food I’ve ever had.

We get to the other end of the fair to check out the animals. Cows lick our hands, goats climb up the side of their pens hoping for a neck scratch, and lambs want to see what we smell like.

It’s all a lot of fun…just wish they had better parking.

After a fun-filled day at the fair, we head over to Passionfish for dinner. We’d gotten a call while at the fair saying the only time they could seat us was 5:30 so off we went.

Dinner was excellent and it’s nice to see how this place has taken off over the years. I see we’re not the only ones who think it’s the best the area has to offer.

With plates of scallops, braised lamb, and duck confit preceded by an appetizer of prosciutto wrapped dates, we were overwhelmed with the deep flavors and fun atmosphere of Passionfish.

One more night, but in the morning it’s time to pack and make that long drive back to L.A.

Darryl

Copyright 2011 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - Looking Beyond the Usual

The trail had lead to a bluff precariously perched about fifty feet above the breakers and rocks below. It was smooth and wide enough for the wheelchair to roll easily and avoid the hedges on each side that appeared to be about halfway composed of poison oak.

A mild enough scare watching Tim navigate his way out through that bit of a challenge and the wooden railings at the edge were enough to bring my parent’s worrying pulse rate down a bit.

Monterey Bay Video

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Beyond, however…where the ocean had eaten away at the edge...the railing gave way to rope strung across metal stakes about ten feet apart.

“We’re not finishing the loop,” I told my wife. “We’ll go back the way we came.”

There are two wheelchair accessible trails here at the Point Lobos State Park in Carmel, California. Not enough parking in general and especially in regards to handicapped spaces, I pull halfway into a regular spot so I can unload Tim from the van, then pull the rest of the way in.

It was the last spot left. If I didn’t do that, I’d have no place to park and the ten dollar entrance fee would have just been for a short, but scenic drive through the park.

The trail was nicely maintained and a park docent was set up with a spotting scope pointing out to sea. He was very helpful and maneuvered the tripod to where Tim could roll up and get a close-up look at the hundreds of sea lions lounging on an offshore rock.

This was the second day of a Labor Day getaway for us to the Monterey Peninsula. We’ve come up here many times and thought we’d come up for an end of summer trip pegged to the Monterey County Fair, which runs a week or so from the end of August to just after Labor Day.

The hotel for this trip was the Rosedale Inn in Pacific Grove, just a block from the ocean sitting on the backside of Asilomar State Park and Conference Center.

Our room had a king size bed, queen size sofabed, tub with bench and shower hose, roll-under sink, fireplace, free wifi, and a big open area to wheel around in. What it didn’t have were any extra seats which would have come in handy for friends that were visiting us there.  It did have an expansive outdoor deck adjacent to the room that served that particular function well.

After sleeping off the long drive from L.A…made longer by a meal stop in Bakersfield and more traffic than we bargained for…we have a delicious and lingering breakfast at First Awakenings.

Technically in Pacific Grove, but just across the street from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we feast on crepes, crab benedict, and French toast on their outdoor patio while the nearby fire pit helps chase away the morning chill.

After our hike, we spend a little time in downtown Carmel. Cute, charming, and full of shops, it’s nice but a little shopping goes a long way for Tim and I.

There's more to come, stay tuned for part 2...coming soon!

Darryl

Copyright 2011 - Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

TRIP REPORT: Monterey and Pacific Grove - Part 2

We've had a great, first day in Pacific Grove and Monterey (see Part 1 here), it's time to complete the trip.

In the morning, we went to First Awakenings for breakfast.  It’s nice that the inn has a continental breakfast, but we want the full meal.  This spot, in an old fish cannery just around the corner from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, really hits the target.

We have some really superb omelets, along with their great bacon and sourdough toast to start off our day.  This gives us some good nutrition and energy for our next activity, a hike across the bay to the 17-Mile Drive.

There’s a nice, wheelchair accessible boardwalk across the sand that bisects the beach from The Links at Spanish Bay golf course.  It’s about a half-mile walk across till you get to a little point where the 17 Mile Drive comes out of the woods and a vista point is available.  Since it’s a drive, you can take your car here – for a fee – but it’s an easy walk from our inn and we get some exercise along the way.  It’s also a great way to get up close and personal with the ocean.

At the vista point, we marvel at the view and have fun watching the many chipmunks that scavenge the area for food before walking back.

In the evening, we head over to Carmel to window shop and have dinner.  We’d never been to the Hog’s Breath Inn, formerly owned by the former mayor of Carmel…Clint Eastwood, so we thought we’d try it out. 

Underneath a jazz radio station and music shop, the restaurant has a large dining room and a pub, separated by a really nice outdoor area with multiple fireplaces, free-form tables, trees, and a large, painted backdrop on the building next door.  Way out back is the very cozy pub that looks like it was lifted from a Tolkien book.

This looks like the perfect setting for dinner!  We tell the maître‘d that we’d like to sit out here and have dinner but he tells us that this is only the bar and just appetizers are served here.  If we’d like dinner, we’d have to eat inside in the dining room.

In we go.  As lovely as the outdoor area is, the indoor dining room has all the charm of a high school cafeteria.  I don’t care how good the food is here, I can’t believe it’s served in such an austere setting so we go back outside and just have a few apps and a couple of drinks.  It turned out very nice but, really, either redo the dining room or ditch the silly “no dinner outside” rule.

The next morning, we get in the car for a drive up the coast.  We head in the general direction  of Watsonville to see what we can find. 

Past the navy’s language school, you come into Marina where you can learn how to hang glide.  Continuing on we get to Moss Landing.

We stop to take a look at this beautiful fishing village.  There are a couple of restaurants and some antique shops but it’s mostly a working fishing fleet here so our time is short-lived.  Eventually, we make it to Watsonville where we buy some freshly picked strawberries to take with us and head back to Monterey.

Back in town, we walk along Fisherman’s Wharf and have free samples of the clam chowder that each restaurant is giving out.  It’s good but I remember coming here in the past and having one of the worst dinners in my life.  After the wharf, we go over to Cannery Row where we have a cocktail at a waterfront lounge with a friendly bartender.  Unfortunately, it has since closed.

Dinner tonight is back in Pacific Grove, this time across the street from Passionfish at International Cuisine where we have a couple of very good pasta dishes along with some good red wine, but still not as good as Passionfish, which will go down as the best place we saw on this trip.

Another sunset with our Watsonville strawberries and champagne, another night in our cozy little inn, and then it’s back to L.A. where we have a couple of days to rest before we pick Tim up from camp.

Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

TRIP REPORT: Monterey and Pacific Grove - Part 1

Welcome to Central Coast Week here at The World on Wheels where we'll focus on that part of coastal California that lies south of San Francisco and north of Los Angeles.  Finshing up, it's three articles focusing on Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel, and Santa Cruz.  Keep reading, each article follows the other below.  Thanks for joining us for this trip along California's Central Coast...

From Los Angeles, Monterey is just about perfect for a weekend getaway.  Not too far away so that you spend a good deal of your precious weekend just driving to and from your destination but far enough that you really know you’re not in L.A. anymore.

This lighthouse is just down the block from our inn.

Letty and I have a week off from Tim as he goes to camp.  As any caregiver can tell you, these moments of respite are preciously few and far between.  We have to stay close enough so that we can respond in an emergency, so we’re limited to the far western part of the United States.  This time, my wife said she wanted to be near the ocean.

Our hotel for this trip is the Deer Haven Inn in Pacific Grove, right across the street from the back gate of Asilomar State Park and Conference Center.  It’s basically an old motel that’s been renovated and spruced up to be more like a bed and breakfast.  Nice and quiet, the inn also has frequent specials where you can get a room just a block from the beach for well under $100.

The room itself is nicely decorated, has a king-size bed, and decent bathroom.  A light continental breakfast is served in the tiny lobby which you can enjoy on the adjacent deck when the weather is nice.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

Tony R under CC-BY license

Across the street is Asilomar, an expansive conference center with lodge-like accommodations.  In fact, if you can get a good rate here, this historic hotel would be my preference in the area.  Boardwalks will let you get across the adjacent sand dunes over to the ocean and the beach that separates Pacific Grove from Pebble Beach.

These are not lawn ornaments

Another boardwalk will let you walk south between the beach and the golf course, or north along the tide pools along Pacific Grove’s shoreline.  I particularly like the walk to the north where dozens of resident deer wander along the shore and are almost tame enough to come up to you.  Almost…once they get about ten feet away, their inherent shyness returns.

A curious local

Just a short drive from here is Cannery Row and Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey.  Both have many dining options, but many just don’t try as hard as they might when they already have swarms of tourists flowing through the doors.  Instead, a quick check on Chowhound and Yelp reveal a better option.

Just inland a bit from Cannery Row is the cute little downtown section of Pacific Grove.  On a quiet corner is Passionfish.  Specializing in seafood, this restaurant puts its energy into great food and wine and tries to cut out the fluff of the dining experience.

Let me explain that a bit because it sounds as if I steered you to a food counter with good food.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Passionfish is a beautiful dining room with great waiter service, but they will serve food on plain china that they got at a discount, or put wine in pretty generic stemware…things like that.  What results is extraordinarily good food (and wine) at prices around 20% below comparable competitors in the area.

Letty had the scallops, delicately cooked little critters served in a delicious mustard sauce while I…not a seafood lover at all…had the duck dinner that had the most delicious glaze on it.  Wonderful, wonderful food with a sterling wine to go with it.  The owner made sure to come by, make us feel welcome, and to make sure we enjoyed the dinner.  We did!

After dinner, back at the inn, we hiked across Asilomar…past some of their guests having a dune-side barbecue and bon fire…and over to the beach where we splashed around the tidepools watching the sun go down.

Stay tuned for Part 2...

Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

CLASSIC TRIP - Monterey, California

Interstate 5 is generally acknowledged to be the quickest route from the southern half of California to the northern half. It’s a no-nonsense, straight arrow, 70 mile-per-hour stretch of freeway through the Central Valley. It’s also one of the more boring drives in the state.

I much prefer highway 99 through the valley or the 101 along the coast where scenery and small towns at least pique your interest now and again. But today, we’re trying to minimize our driving time so it’s up the 5 we go until we get to the pass over to Hollister and then along a busy country road to the coast. Our final destination is Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey and our time to get there is 6 hours, including a gas stop and a Burger King stop in Kettleman City.

Home for the next two nights would be the Doubletree Hotel (now the Portola Hotel - Ed) adjacent to Fisherman’s Wharf in downtown Monterey. This would cost us the advertised $89 per night, plus tax and parking...not a bad deal for the location.

It does take some effort to find the driveway to the hotel. The highway dips into a tunnel under it and then offers no place for a U-turn for a mile. Once we double back, the one-way streets that make up the downtown area keep us circling the block until we can arrive at the proper place to turn in. Since the valet only costs an extra two dollars a day, we opt to pull up to the door and let someone else worry about the parking.

I ask, but no accessible rooms are available when we arrive...I was also told this when I made the reservation, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. What we did get was a beautifully decorated room with two double beds, a view of the courtyard, with plenty of room for the chair but none of the usual accessible features such as grab bars. Since it was roomy, we compensated fine. Also, at check in we receive those delicious Doubletree chocolate chip cookies.

The next morning we head over to Cannery Row and have breakfast at the Culinary Center of Monterey, a combination cooking school, kitchen gourmet store, and restaurant. Their all-you-can-eat gourmet breakfast buffet is $12.95 per person with kids paying one dollar per year of their age. The restaurant is on the second floor but the main entrance (in back) is nicely ramped.

The tables here have a spectacular, if drafty, view of the bay and the food is very delicious. A very subtle chorizo and egg dish (the chef has a secret source in Salinas for the sausage), salmon crepes, cornbread french toast, and a fresh-fruit parfait are just a few of the delectable offerings today. We load up on this great food and head out for our day with tummies full.

It’s a forty minute drive north to the beaches of Santa Cruz. The last classic boardwalk amusement park sits on the sand here (Pacific Park in Santa Monica is a new version of these old beachfront parks but doesn’t count as a classic...yet). Admission is free and crowds of people are taking advantage of it this morning.

Santa Cruz Boardwalk and the Giant Dipper

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

Larry Pieniazek under CC-BY-SA license

Our goal today is the 1924 vintage, Arthur Looff built Giant Dipper roller coaster. This classic woody is lovingly maintained and is on many coaster fans top ten lists. It’s also appeared in such diverse movies as The Sting and The Lost Boys.

We buy our tickets and check the access. Wheelchair riders enter through the exit where a button can be pushed to summon a ride operator to let you in. You get your choice of seats...we take the front. As usual, you must bring your own help for transferring out of your chair and into the seat, but the seat was just a bit roomier than most modern coasters and therefore just a bit easier to get into.

On Board the Dipper

Although the ride is exciting, the speed and elements seem quaint and tame compared to today’s monsters but it has one element that’s a doozy. When your train leaves the station, it immediately drops into a pitch-black tunnel featuring two very quick u-turns before coming out into the daylight and engaging the lift chain. No other coaster I’ve yet been on gives you such a quick scare and thrill before even starting up the lift.

The rest of the ride is medium fast (top speed 55 mph), with lots of curves integrated into it’s drops. The head-chopper effects are kind of minimal compared to such coasters as Ghostrider, Scandia Screamer, and the Cyclone. It’s a solid minute and a half ride, with one really all-star element...that tunnel drop out of the station.

Afterward, we munch on a mundane order of garlic fries. Not nearly as good as the garlic fries we got at the Date Festival in Indio or at Cajun Way restaurant in Monrovia, but better than nothing.

That’s it for us and the Boardwalk. Classic amusement park ride fans may also want to check out the circa 1911 Looff Carousel here too where you can still grab for the brass ring and get a free ride.

Next, we head over the hills, inland to the little town of San Juan Bautista.

For California history, you need to start with two things. The Gold Rush had a huge impact on the state (see our gold country and Yosemite reports for more), but before that, the Spanish set up a string of missions that every good Californian must visit at some time or another. Missions are special places for us and our family has visited several of them. Heck, my wife and I even got married in one.

The missions were churches, of course, but since the church and state were pretty cozy in those days, they were also forts with garrisons of Spanish soldiers stationed at each one. Each mission was built one day’s horse ride apart from each other in a string up the coastal side of the state. This mission road is El Camino Real. The padres were there to convert the heathens while the soldiers kept the peace and protected Spain’s interests in California.

History lesson over.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

Robert A. Estremo under CC-BY-SA license

Here in San Juan Bautista, the mission still sits in a nice, rural setting across the lawn from the old stage coach stop, the livery, and of course the hotel. The hotel even boasts of such modern conveniences as a two story outhouse (what’s it like to be in the bottom one?).

The mission...still an active parish...is a beauty with wide aisles, an ornate altar, and a lovely garden. We wandered around the grounds and found some barn owls living in a palm tree and a young chicken attached itself to me and followed me around like a puppy until one of the nuns spotted us and put the bird away.  Apparently, it had escaped its coop and she wanted to put it back before it became a meal for the local wildlife.

One thing that always gets me when I visit these old missions is the Indian graveyards inside. Usually, a small plot of land will contain the remains of thousands of Native Americans. Here in San Juan Bautista, a plot about a hundred feet long by about fifty feet wide contains approximately 4,300 natives in the soil. It’s kind of a testament to the devastation wrought among the indigenous population via the European explorers and settlers.

Afterward, we have some ice cream over on the town’s main street while many Harley riders loudly start their machines as they leave town. On a side note, why do so many Harley riders take the mufflers off of their bikes? Why is it that they have to impose such a noisy thing upon everybody else? What is so cool about being so loud? Really, I want to know...if there is no reason, please do us all a favor and be quiet!
Back to Monterey...

Attached to the Doubletree Portola is Peter B’s, a brewpub and bar. It was four o’clock and the daily happy hour was starting. Peter B’s has a modern decor with a nice fireplace, a pool table, and many TV’s for the sports fan. We got a cozy table next to the fireplace and ordered some drinks.

The happy hour prices are just a nick lower than the regular prices. A 22 ounce beer was $4.50 compared to $5 regularly, so a screaming bargain this wasn’t. However, the popcorn was good and free and we could charge it to our room so we knocked back a few before dinner. For you whiskey drinkers, they specialize in the stuff along with the very good handcrafted brew.

It’s a very short walk to Fisherman’s Wharf from the hotel. In fact, you don’t have to even cross a street as the hotel sits on a viaduct connecting to the wharf while the highway goes under in a tunnel.

There are several restaurants here and all were gladly giving samples of their food. My wife chose tonight’s place, Rappa’s Seafood, I think mainly because it sat on the end of the wharf offering spectacular views.

Murphy’s rule on restaurants with a view: The better the view, the worse the food. In this case the seafood, at least, was very good with my wife ordering a seafood sampler with many kinds of ocean denizens on her plate. So Rappa’s breaks this rule

Murphy’s rule on seafood restaurants: Other than seafood, everything else will be less than par.

Unfortunately, Rappa’s keeps this rule with a New York steak that needed a healthy dose of A-1 to have any taste at all...a good steak should need nothing else to prop up its flavor. My son’s burger was also a bit less than overwhelming.

After our dinner, we come out to a wharf filled with fire trucks. It appears that the giant trash compactor that serves the wharf has a slow-burning fire deep within. I talk to one of Monterey’s firemen who tells me they will try to get it out but it’s looking doubtful. He’s not looking forward to what comes next: hauling the whole compactor off of the pier and dumping its foul-smelling contents in the parking lot to find the blaze.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the truck, the battalion chief has arrived and is handing out stickers to all the kids wandering by in a bit of impromptu PR.

We walk around the wharf a bit after dinner, checking out the sea lions on the buoys and rocks, a family of otters floating on their backs, and the usual tacky souvenirs on sale at the wharf’s general store.

All those tacky souvenirs makes my head spin!

We contemplate visiting the hotel’s pool and spa but nix that idea when we find it’s in a separate building and we’d have to do quite a bit of walking in the chilly outdoors in our swimsuits to get there. Instead, we visit a jewelry shop where my wife purchases some earrings as a souvenir.

The next morning, we head across the street to the Marriott to have breakfast in their cafe. Due to a quirk in the layout of the land, the Marriott’s coffee shop is actually closer to our room than the Doubletree’s Portola's. After a very nice last meal, we pack it back up and head home down the very scenic highway 101.

Funny, it only took us five hours to drive home on the scenic route when the quick route took longer...

-Darryl
Copyright 2003 - Darryl Musick