Magnificent Monterey!

It was back to the coastline for Team Breitmann!  The girls had a vision of Southern California when I said we were headed back to the coastline, following our time in Yosemite.  Boy, were they in for a surprise!  I think what surprised them the most was, like Yosemite, the diversity of the coastline in and around Monterey.  Cliffs, sand, forest, farmland, flowers, grass all within sight of the water surround Monterey.  This is something you just don't normally see along a coast.  Enjoy the pictures and the narrative. Oh, by the way, did I mention that we LOVE California!  Too bad it's economically upside down.  

Yours truly doing what I do best..eat!  This was taken on Pebble Beach 17-mile drive.  This drive is inside the gated community of Pebble Beach and hugs the coast and runs past the famous Pebble Beach Golf course.  In order to drive this road it requires a ticket costing $9.75 per vehicle.

Stacey and I on Pebble Beach

Hailey the girl for an eye for hearts spots a heart shaped stone on Pebble Beach.

Heidi and Hailey haul some "pebbles"!  Don't see these on the beaches of Panama City!

Heidi and Hailey construct the "leaning tower of pebbles"!

Me and my girls enjoy the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean along 17-mile drive.

Heidi laughs after she is unexpectedly splashed with an ice cold wave from the Pacific.

Hailey shows of her "find" of Pacific crustacean marine life!

Okay, no hurricanes here.  However, earthquakes and tsunamis are the things to "watch for".  

The official symbol of Pebble Beach, which is this "lone cypress".  It is a 250 year old salt pruned Monterey Cypress tree.  You may recognize this famous, oft photographed tree.

Sandy beach, flowers, rocks, Pacific Ocean waves.  All part of the awesome diversity along 17-mile drive.  No wonder Pebble Beach is so wonderful a place to play golf!

We took this picture of Bixby bridge south of Carmel when we took a drive down Highway 1.  This bridge is one of the most photographed features along the West Coast of the United States and has been featured in many automobile commercials. This road is fun to drive and would be even more fun to drive in a convertible sports car.  Too bad we only had our 1998 2 door Saturn..sigh!

Stacey and Heidi pose on one of the many "overlook vistas" along Highway 1 South of Carmel.

Wow!  There were so many vistas like this that we could just not take pictures of them all.  You really have to take this drive to appreciate just how awesome the views are. They just keep coming at ya!

Hailey on Carmel-by-the-Sea city beach.  We went down here a couple of evenings to watch the sunset.  What we did not realize is that the fog and clouds roll in as the sun goes down...so...not much of a sunset just a soft glow.  

Hailey is the perpetual "tom boy" and loves to climb trees and there are some great climbing trees around here.

This is an example of how high Hailey can get in a tree when I don't pay attention. "Hey, Dad!  Look up here!"  As I turn around, "Holy smokes, Hailey! Get on down from there!  Oh, wait!  Lemme get a picture first!"  :)

Hailey and I take a long walk down the Carmel beach towards Pebble Beach Golf course.  Here she finds a "cave".  We found remnants of a campfire here.  Apparently you can do that here.  That would've been fun.  Had I known I would have packed us some firewood.

Heidi, my California red-headed beauty poses with me on Carmel beach after we attended Shoreline Church on Sunday.  Can you believe she is 12 years old?!  She turns 13 in August! Notice she convinced me to shave off my goatee.  She said it made me look too old!   

Carmel Bay at sunset!

You can see in the left top corner of this picture the Pebble Beach golf course.  Here Hailey finds some kelp.  She found this stuff fascinating.  It is something she is not used to compared to the seaweed found on her native Panama City beaches.  Here we saw wild sea otters laying on there backs amongst the kelp.  They were so fun to watch.

Heidi on Monterey bay near Fisherman's Wharf.  The clam chowder here is AWESOME!

The girls loved hearing the harbor seals bark like dogs!  They were everywhere and we had a kick watching the waves splash up on the rocks and wake up the sleeping seals.

I took the girls to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, while Stacey had some "down time".  It was a great time.  One of the neat things about this place is that is the only aquarium to successfully display live Great White sharks.  Unfortunately, they did not have any when we visited.  Bummer.  I so wanted to see a live Great White.

Part of this aquarium used to be a sardine cannery.  In fact, the whole bay area in Monterey used to be home to a bustling sardine canning industry.  John Steinbeck coined the term "Cannery Row" in his famous book of the same name.  Here Hailey looks at a display of the assembly line in a typical sardine canning company.

Heidi snuggles up into a life-sized reproduction of a Pacific Giant Clam.  Holy huge crustacean, Batman! That would make a lotta chowder!

Heidi and Hailey take a look at the kelp beds from underneath. We saw sea otters playing in the tops.  Fun stuff.

Hailey goes to "school" with some mackerel!  Do you know what a group of sharks is called?  I didn't.  They are called a: "shiver" of sharks!  Do you know what a group of jelly-fish is called?  I didn't.  They are called a "smack" of jelly-fish.  

The girls find there next dogs in Carmel, when they went shopping.  I took that day for my "down day".  Aah, the quietness...can you hear it!  

We woke up to Hailey's midnight artwork master piece in the motor home kitchen floor!

Molly our awesome traveling companion tells us that while we had fun and learned a lot here in Monterey bay area, it's time to put our paws to the road and head on out when we still love a place!  She sure is ready to have the wind in her face and her tail a waggin'!  Off to the San Francisco and Napa Valley area!