Monday morning found us enjoying Monterey, as we got up and tried to finish the ginormous remains of the burritos from Sunday's lunch. HI Monterey was a very gracious host overall. I would definitely recommend them for hostel-staying if you're in the area. We packed up the car and checked ourselves out before heading down to the aquarium. We made the attempt to drive down there, since we were going to be heading out directly afterwards, but parking was nowhere to be found cheaply, so we ended up parking in the hostel's lot and walking the four blocks down to the aquarium.
From the outside, it doesn't look like much, that's for sure. Monterey Aquarium is situated at one end of Cannery Row, and is itself in an old cannery. The place is pretty cool, and set up decently with a deep bay exhibit, as well as deep water exhibits, penguins, several different touch tanks, as well as sea otters, flamingos, rays and skates, turtles, and honestly too many different fish and critters to name. On an intellectual level, they did a great job mixing up the interactive and the educational with the oh-man-look-at-that-cool-thing. It also helps that the aquarium looks out onto Monterey Bay itself, and incorporates natural tidal pools and the bay into it's exhibits as much as possible. Overall, a very awesome experience.
I managed to wend my way past school children, grab a coffee, and we trekked back to the hostel to begin what would end up being a 6 hour long odyssey. Earlier this morning, while we were making attempt number 2 on the burritos, we got into a discussion with one of the other hostel patrons about the blockages on Hwy. 1. It had been brought to our attention by L that there was the possibility that some of the highway was gone and done for via landslides. He was right, to an extent, but it seemed like one landslide had cleared up, only to have another one take it's place further down the road. The helpful lady mentioned that there was a particular alternate route we could take that would still let us see some of the prettiest parts along the coastal highway, as well as gave us a few pointers about other things we could stop and see, and with that in mind, we hopped into the Prius and proceeded to get about a half mile down the road before we had to stop and start taking pictures.
And welcome to how it took us almost 4 hours to get 65 miles down the coastal highway.
I wish I were joking. I have no idea where we took most of the pictures that we did. But I know that it's at least chronological, and possibly indicative of what ever 1/4 to 1 mile of the coast looks like. To be fair, it is completely gorgeous throughout there. But it was seriously getting ridiculous. We eventually made it through Big Sur, which was very pretty in and of itself (and we were also glad for L's advice to gas up before we left Monterey, as gas there was $5.44/gal). Our helpful guide back in Monterey also suggested that we take a moment and stop at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to see a waterfall. We were a little skeptical at first, but it took us down about a 1/4 of a mile and underneath the highway to where a creek jumps off the edge of a cliff and onto the beach. I think I could have never left that little trail, staring at that cove.
Eventually we dragged ourselves away and made it down to Lucia, which is literally a building and an "inn" attached that is also a restaurant and a general store. Here we were told to obtain cookies and more detailed directions, both of which we did. The folks at Lucia were kind enough to post up a sign stating that continuing south can be done via a crazyass winding road through a state park and then government land, or we could turn around and go back to Monterey. We hopped back into the Prius, sugared up, and proceeded to giggle ourselves silly down to Nacimiento Rd, which began to corkscrew up into the Santa Lucia Range and through the Los Padres National Forest until suddenly we were viewing the Pacific Ocean from the tops of mountains and realizing that we couldn't see the horizon at all.
On our journey to find Hwy 101 (only slightly less scenic), we eventually left Los Padres and hit the Fort Hunter Liggett, which involved some really beautiful and lovely rolling hills and grasslands. And then also some tanks. We finally made it out to 101 again and took that the rest of the way into San Luis Obispo, where we found our hostel (The Hostel Obispo), checked in, and then hauled ourselves out and took a walk down to Yanagi Sushi for dinner. If there is one thing that I am definitely enjoying about our hostel time, it's the prominence of walkability that seems to be prevalent.
Thus goes Day 7!
View Larger Map
No comments:
Post a Comment