Monterey Afterthoughts

I thought I'd share a few pictures of our trip to Monterey.

Above is the view from the room at sunset. We had three rooms in all. My husband's and my room was on the opposite end of the hotel from the other two rooms. We met at one of the two side by side rooms for a little appetizer before dinner. I was going to get a picture of the food we were eating (because I couldn't believe we were eating all that right before dinner) but by the time I got back with the camera everything had been put away.

We ended up eating in the hotel's restaurant which was probably not a bad idea as we all (with one exception) had a few drinks. I'm now going to take this opportunity to complain just a little so if you're not into whining just scroll through the pictures.

First off we ordered our coctails from the server. Some time later the coctail waitress brought our drinks. I had ordered a Tom Collins. The only thing I recognized about the drink I got was the cherry floating on top. It tasted terrible, like maybe the orange juice in it was bad or something. And besides that Tom Collins don't have orange juice! I had everyone else taste it and they agreed with me that something was wrong with my drink.

I flagged the coctail waitress down and told her I thought something was wrong with my Tom Collins and I couldn't drink it. I ordered a vodka and cranberry juice instead. I figured it would be hard to go wrong with that.

When the coctail waitress returned she gave me my vodka and cranberry and asked if I had ordered a Tom Collins or a John Collins. I said I've never heard of a John Collins. She then informed me that the drink I was given was a John Collins and that it is my responsibility to make sure my server understands my drink order.

That's funny. I always thought it was the server's responsibility to make sure he got the customer's order correct.

So then we move on to dinner. When we were giving our orders I ordered lamb chops. They came with either white rice or fried potatoes. I asked if I could get rice pilaf instead. The answer was no. I was disappointed but went with the fried potatoes. Whoever heard of a "fine dining" establishment not being able to serve/substitute rice pilaf!!

Then a little later, after the drink confusion the waiter made a snide comment. Maybe I was being overly sensitive about it at that point and I don't know if anybody else heard it. I was midway through my second v&c and he asked if I would like a Tom Collins (heavy emphasis on the Tom). I said no thank you.

Other than my food being just okay and the minor conflicts with the wait staff it was great being together with family we haven't seen in a long time. We were all laughing quite a bit and it was really fun.

This picture is after dinner when we went back to the room. It is showing the same view as the first picture of Monterey and the bay, only obviously this time at night.

Here is a shot of the family just outside the room. This was taken from the beach when my niece and I thought we saw big crabs scrabbling about the surf. I ran down to take a picture of the "crabs" but it turns out they were actually some sort of birds! Who knew birds stayed up at night! And don't say anything about drinking too much to figure out the difference between birds and crabs. (I thought those crabs were moving awfully fast!)

The next day while the others took care of some business my husband and I went in to Monterey to shop along Cannery Row. I wasn't in the mood for the Aquarium, particularly since there were several bus loads of school kids there.

I was a bit disappointed. The majority of the stores were very touristy types with nothing but junk stuff. I was also very surprised by the amount of candy stores. How many candy stores does one street need?

The one good thing I noticed was that since our last visit to Monterey a few years ago there has been some very recent remodeling of Cannery Row. Some attractive new buildings are up, but they were so new they are all still unoccupied.

After wandering aimlessly for about an hour we headed up Highway 1, taking the long way to San Jose. I had to take at least one picture of the yellow fields that seemed to be just about everywhere.

And since we passed by the lighthouse at Pigeon Point it was only natural that I took a picture of that too.

It was really nice to get out of town for a day or two. But what really made the trip was being able to see our relatives again.