Sunday, July 27, 2014

Sunday, July 27, 2014

a strange day on the coast

Posted by Hippobean at 11:29 PM
Since the Hippo had to be out of the house, we decided to drive down the coast to Carmel to escape from the inland heat. The traffic on 101 past Morgan Hill was heavy due to the Garlic Festival at Gilroy and a long bumper to bumper to 156, so we stuck with 101 through Salinas. Steinbeck, of course, immediately came to mind. Carmel was cooler and after a nice mediterranean lunch, which took a while because the restaurant was short staffed, it was already 4PM by the time we finished our lunch. No time to paint town. We simply drove down to the Carmel Mission. D has never been to a CA Mission and the revisit brought back nice memories of the Hippo's mission to the Missions. The Carmel Mission looked even nicer than the first time I've visited it. Walking silently through the church, I reminisced the Chanticleer acappella. At the mission courtyard, I've finally learned that Father Junipero was actually a Spaniard from Majorca (or maybe I knew but forgot?). I bought a Mission lotion, made with immaculate waters from the Lourdes Grotto. the rose scent smelled nice. I later discovered that I took the bath and shower liquid soap instead! Doh! Ater a brief drive to the beach, we drove the 17 Miles Drive, my second visit, and made stops at various spots. Pebble Beach Club was fantastic. All rooms faced the ocean. D and M said the calamari at the club restaurant was very good. Spanish Bay, although looked very nice, had no ocean view. M discovered some strange looking marine life, rubbery, transparent and blue. We didnt know what it was. Then we drove by the nice coastal homes and I put on Dylan. On our way back, we debated if we should go to a In-n-out but decided to do Bubba Gump in Monterey. D bought M an otter stuffy while we waited for a table. Didnt know M was an otter fanatic. We did spot some in the water earlier. They were indeed quite furry, cute and adorable. I had seafood pasta in Carmel and had 3 types of shrimp at Bubba Run Forrest Run Gump. M ordered cajun shrimps and D a shrimp salad. A very shrimp day today. Since Dylan wasnt a big hit with M, we put on Supertramp and sang our way back home. Coming back, 101 was jam packed so we backtracked to HI 1 but made the mistake of taking 17 instead of going 1 all the way. 2 accidents on 17, just a few yards apart, then another on 880 put us about 40 minutes behind our estimated home arrival time. D was bone tired and had a 7AM meeting the next day. I felt bad. Shouldnt have had a sit down dinner in Monterey. Although it was a nice outing with cool refreshing air on the coast, the day had been strange with so many accidents and delays on the highways, many indecisions, strange ocean findings, and a nostalgic mission revisit.

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Strange finding (photo by Mari)


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rubbery transparent blue thing
(photo by Mari)



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Colorful coast (photo by Mari)


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What is this? (photo by Mari)


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D and Hippo at the Carmel Mission courtyard
(photo by Mari)



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M & D finding blue things


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M & D looking for more blue things


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D wandering around the coast

1 comments :

Tomasso said...

The blue things are creatures called "Vellela", aka "By-the-wind-sailors". These jellies - or cnidarians, if you want to get technical - are closely related to the Portugese Man-O-War, but don't sting humans.

 

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