What's significant about the number 817? That's the number of miles we drove on our weekend road trip!! We set out early Saturday morning to head up to Monterey. One of my former coworkers, Ian Larsen, got married. He has been stationed at the DLI (Defense Language Institute).
As we traveled up the 405 and then on to the 5, I decided to provide some musical entertainment. In an effort to re-create the scene from Tommy Boy, I popped in a Carpenter's CD... "Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby....baby...baby...baby...baby oh baby..." Good stuff. We proceeded to listen to a few other old school CDs of mine including Jock Jams. It was great.
If you've ever been through central California, you know there are a lot of farms and a few cows and that's about it. As we progressed along our journey, I decided that at some point, we ought to stop at a fruit stand along the way and partake of the good of the earth. As we came up on Holliser and Gilroy (the garlic capital of the world) we stopped off at the Casa de Fruita. It's not just a fruit stand, it's an RV Park, restaurant and a mini amusement park. I got a peach and Andy got some dried fruit. Ahhh, the good of the earth.
From there, we went directly to the Navy Lodge (our hotel) and rested before getting ready for the wedding. The wedding started at 4 o'clock and we stopped somewhere so we could split a hamburger to tide us over until the reception because we were starving. Well, had we been 5 seconds later, we would have been IN the wedding. Of course most weddings start a little late (I've heard of some weddings starting up to 2 hours late) but since this was an Air Force environment, it started as close to 16:00 hours as possible. We walked in just before the bridesmaids started walking down the aisle. Heh heh.
The wedding was nice, Ian's sister sang The Rose and it sounded great. It always is amazing to me how quick weddings are compared to how much planning and preparation go into them.
Between the wedding and the reception, we went to check out Monterey Bay. Traffic was really bad since it was a holiday weekend, but we found a great parking space between the Fisherman's Warf and Cannery Row. As we were sitting there taking in the sunshine (in our wedding attire), I heard some seals barking in the distance. Sure enough, as we walked down the pier, there were tons of seals resting on the rocks. We were really close to them and it was cool to see them in their natural habitat. They didn't smell all that great, but it was cool none the less. We also saw an otter and lots of birds like pelicans etc.
We then went to the Navy Postgraduate campus to attend the reception. Since neither Ian nor Amanda are from Monterey, there weren't a lot of people there--which was nice because it was very cozy. It was good to see Ian again and for him to meet Andy. Amanda is cool because she is learning Chinese at the DLI. So the tables were marked with Chinese characters and they had Chinese take-out boxes just like we did at our wedding. We had a great time.
On Sunday morning, we had planned to attend a local ward's sacrament meeting before we set out for the day's activities. Andy would add that the church building was in a great location and looks more like an Elk's Lodge than a traditional LDS chapel. He was quite fascinated by the layout. As I was sitting there, I looked up and to my surprise, I recognized Lisa (Wade) Peery!!! At one point she got up to take one of her kids out to the bathroom, so I got up and went out to talk to her. It was great to see her. She has six kids and is living in Palo Alto. They were in Monterey on vacation so it was all the more fortuitous that I saw her there. It made my day.
After sacrament meeting, we set out on the 17-mile drive in Monterey. The 17-mile drive is basically a 17-mile circle that takes you along some great beaches and golf courses including Spanish Bay, Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Poppy Hills. The area is absolutely beautiful and it looks just the way I had imagined it would....rocky shores and beautiful homes.
We then continued on to Carmel-By-The-Sea. There were a lot of little shops and people. By the time we made it down to the beach (at the bottom of a hill) we had about 5 minutes to eat our lunch before we had to head down the road to make it to our reservations to tour the Hearst Castle.
The drive down the coast was extremely beautiful but kept winding back and forth and we BARELY made it to the Hearst Castle in time for our tour. At one point, Andy looked out across a bay and made the comment that a rock formation was very "bulbous". Indeed, it was, but I couldn't stop laughing at his use of the word--I have no idea where it came from, but it became a big joke from then on.
The Hearst Castle was interesting. William Randolph Hearst certainly had way too much money and crazy ideas. The man had a zoo on his property. What was he thinking? All in all, I'd say it was too ornate for my tastes. It was about 100 degrees and I must admit that the swimming pools (both indoor and out) looked very welcoming. We stayed in San Luis Obisbo Sunday night.
Monday morning we went to Solvang - a small danish village north of Santa Barbara. We ate Aebleskivers - a yummy danish dessert. After walking around for a bit, we picked up some cheese and crackers and went to Nojoqui Falls. It was a short hike and by Jamie's Hawaii standards, it was not much of a waterfall - more of a trickle. After the hike to the falls we continued home by driving through Santa Barbara and luckily had very little traffic through LA back to Orange County.
