Monterey CA

 Monterey California

April 11 - 18, 2025

The drive from Pismo to Monterey was much shorter, about 3 hours and very nice along CA 101. We needed to fuel up and learned why it's best to stop at Truck stops when driving a 37 foot motorhome with another 15 feet of car behind you. Plus they have windshield squeegees on a long pole!

We camped at the Monterey County Fairgrounds -- we were literally just assigned a parking space. See the pic that shows our RV's slideouts about 4" away from our neighbors so we hadda keep the blinds shut most of the time. Luckily our neighbors were nice though they called Murray "Marie" so Murray sulked for a full 24 hours. Unlike the Pismo RV park the vibe at Monterey was much less friendly. No campfires were allowed so that added to the gloominess but we would not have anywhere to light it anyway! But the park was exactly 2.4 miles away from the pier and Fishermans Wharf on an amazing beachside bike path. We took full advantage of that path riding it all the way to Cannery Row a couple of times where we were lucky enough to see many seals and sea otters.

Klaus on one of his 15 minute breaks,
supervised by his boss.

We enjoyed miles of gorgeous beach walks. The weather was cooler than Pismo and quite windy. We didn't see much of the sun the entire time. The dogs enjoyed the Fairgrounds as it gave them ample opportunity to terrorize the local feral cats (translation: skulking quietly by them - they learned their cat lesson from Calvin's cat John Wick).

Hildegard (note the family trait of the
 out turned flippers)

Klaus was surprised to run into his seal cousin, Hildegard, who was visiting from Germany.  

Otter or Klaus ...?

Local asparagus, local artichoke
and San Diego cherry tomatoes.

Did you know that Monterey County is the artichoke capital of the world(1)? We enjoyed them on a few occasions and they tasted just like artichokes. We also partook of freshly caught fish from the Monterey Fishing Company. We stumbled upon The Sand Bar Restaurant on the pier where we had our first fantastic calamari that had been caught that day. 

On the way to Big Sur - there were otters in this cove!

We took a couple of day trips both as a couple and Sue solo. We enjoyed the Julia Pfeiffer state park in Big Sur and the lovely drive there (more sea otters!). 

Sue took a trip to Salinas to see the John Steinbeck Center which had a pretty thorough history of Steinbeck as well as the camper he took around America, "Rocinante" with his faithful poodle in Travels With Charlie. Pfft. (iykyk). We decided to name our RV "Riginante" in Steinbeck's honor. 

Murray if he were made of resin!

Wednesday afternoon, Denis took off work early and we biked to the Monterey Aquarium(2). We have been to a lot of aquariums so were not expecting so much, but this one was quite spectacular! The scale of the exhibits was huge and innovative. The giant tank of the kelp forrest environment had giant sea Bass, reef and leopard sharks, and uncountable smaller fish. The otters were active, endlessly swimming around their tank. Many of the exhibits are rescues that will be returned to the waters when they are fully rehabilitated.

The Aquarium created this actual
beach, replicating the
shore birds' natural habitat.

On the way back, we stopped at The Sandbar, or "Fathom of Monterey" as it was on the pier and had a bait and tackle shop next door. We had great clams and more of the calamari. Highly recommended if you go to Monterey!

Stuff we forgot on our trip: bras (eeek!), salt, pepper, (though we have plenty of Chinese 5 spice Seasoning) beach chairs, but most importantly - OUR PASSPORTS. Happily Sophia is in San Diego briefly and will bring them up with to to Eugene, OR which we will hit sometime in May/June.

Daily life: Denis works each workday. Sue tries to get 15,000 steps in per day so long dog walks and lots of hiking. We reconnect around 4pm ish to catch up/go on an outing before cooking dinner. So far we have not even come close to killing each other. This is a triumph given that we're within 20 feet of each other at all times when we're in Riginante.

Murray looking for the authorities
to correct the spelling of "Denis"

Next up Angels Camp...

Footnotes

(1) Monterey County produces almost 2/3 of the world's artichokes

(2) We were the first major public Aquarium in the world; the first Aquarium with a living kelp forest; the first to create large-scale jellyfish exhibits; the first to successfully exhibit young great white sharks (or "shikes" as Nathan would say) and return them successfully to the wild.