We arrived in Monterey this afternoon and had this fellow on the dock opposite to greet us. I hope he doesn’t decide to come up on our dock; I am not up on my sea lion etiquette!!
We spent last night in Santa Cruz which is just across Monterey Bay from here, about 20 miles. We were quite tired when we got there so just had supper and went to bed and saw very little of the town. We plan to spend 2 or 3 days here in Monterey.
The coast line from here to San Francisco has been designated a marine sanctuary which means they can’t drill for oil, I believe fishing is still allowed. There are lots of sea otters, sea lions, pelicans and other sea birds around, apparently whales frequent the area as well.
At one time there was a huge sardine industry here in Monterey but it died off in the late 40’s and now they have turned all the cannery buildings into a tourist area. It was quite pleasant strolling through the stores, but it is a big temptation to spend money and I had to keep my hands firmly in my pockets. Monterey seems to have a lot of history attached to it; we walked by the place where some U.S. guy landed and claimed the area for the U.S during the war with Spain over this area. It had been a major Spanish port where all boats that wished to trade on the West Coast had to report in and be given permissio We forgot the camera so will take more pictures tomorrow. There are lots of different looking trees and bushes here; I will have to see about learning the names of some of them.
We plan to rent a couple of bikes tomorrow and ride from one end to the beach front to the other. Barry and I came here 8 years ago when we won the trip to San Francisco and it was neat to be able to identify the restaurant that we had a wonderful dinner at. We may have to visit again and see if the food is still as good as we remember it. There is a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. eatery as well and it sounds like fun.