Trip to monterey

We started off at around 12.30 on the fourth of september 2004. The initial idea was to cover as much as possible from Monterey to Big Sur.Monterey is about 2-3 hours drive from San Francisco. So that would make it about a 4-5 hour journey for us from folsom.There are multiple ways(routes) that we could take.We decided to choose a slightly longer bu a more scenice route to reach san francisco.This route will tale us througha city called San Raffel.The inlan waters of the pacific can be seen by the sides of the road.We had taken idlis which we ate on the way.We then reached Golden Gate bridge drove past it and reached our favourite highway 1 (also called the pacific highway/scenic highway).

It was about 6 when we took the exit from highway one into Monterey.We went to the Visitor Ceneter where there were a lot of useful pamplets and information.All roads are small and all of them end at the ocean or run parallel to the ocean.We had the marina (all beaches are called marinas , I think). right infront of us.We had a hotel reservation in Best Western Inn.But before that we wanted to stand in the waves once and also wanted to see sunset by the ocean.So we drove past the visitor center,through a very ancient road crannery row.This place also has a wax museum.We parked the car in ocean avenue and by that time the place we had reached was Pacific Grove this is a very small beautiful town,where people dont even write house numbers on the doors.There was a walking trail starting at that point and so we decided to walk from there till the sunset point.

Bike(cycle ) rentals are a popular thing in these areas.Apart from the normal cycles, different models like Tandem, where two people cycle and gives a look that the two cycles are attatched one behind the other.Family cycle, where four people or so can pedal and then luxury cycles where you can sit like in a easy chair and keep pedalling are available.

It was a pleasant walk and we crossed one park.There were lot of weddings taking place in these parks.We also sat down under one of the trees.There were some people who were cooking in the park itself.They bring along folding table,chairs, a umbrella for the table and then cook eat and swim.There were kids trying to learn diving or surfing(where you must hold /stand on a skating board type of a thing and keep moving over the waves).

Due to the bends and curves we could not see the sun actually set but the sky had got the nice line of twilight colour and it was amazing.So after reaching the sunset point we walked back to the car.We had to go the other side of the highway for our hotel.After checking in we had chapathi and thakali thoku.The hotel also had a microwave and fridge.So we had also take the rice cooker so that we could make rice and have with curd.

The next day we decided to go to the beaches specifically.We decided not to spend time on whale watching or aquarium as they can be done anytime.But the water gets very cold in winter and so it will not be possible to get into water at that time.We drove past pacific grove and went to the waters for teh first time in Alistair State Beach.This beach had very fine sand.After spending some 15 minutes we drove to Pebble Beach.