San Diego Road Trip - Day Four

Day Three – Monterey to San Luis Obispo
Total Miles Driven: 145
Total Time in Car: 4 hours 13 minutes
Total Number of Gas Stations Passed when Near Empty Because they Didn’t Have Diesel: 4

After leaving the crummy hotel I picked in Monterey as quickly as possible this morning, we headed into Monterey proper (where the nice looking hotels cost a lot more – it might be worth it). Travis had scoped out a café with beignets – normally a once a year treat. Since it was Ben’s lucky day, we got two orders. Surprisingly, Ry was not a fan. This is unfortunate as it meant the rest of us had to pick up the slack. It’s really not good for one family to consume a dozen beignets. We did leave two for the cute little birdie that distracted Ry during our meal.

We cruised around, trying to find a good parking deal. It was a quarter for every 10 minutes at the meter, and $20 for 8 hours in a garage. Ridiculous. We got Monterey rockstar parking just two blocks from the aquarium for just $8. Some things irritate me (alright, a lot of things irritate me). Paying a bunch for parking is one of them, so I was pretty pleased with the find. We then headed to the aquarium to get in line to buy tickets. Karma coming back to bite me for my comment about laughing at all the people in line at the science center in San Francisco. We were them in Monterey. Karma must have been pleased with my sheepishness as the nice people in front of us left us their coupon and we saved $8 on admission! This means parking was effectively free. Sweet!

Okay, here is where I was going to begin the fish flicks. There were a lot, but the outlet at the hotel appears to have failed, meaning my battery died prior to uploaded everything. So, you miss out on a ton of cool flicks. Maybe I'll try again tonight. So there were a lot because we’ve spent countless hours with the boys on the webcams sponsored by the Aquarium. Seeing it in person was pretty nice, and really appreciated by both boys. Ry, due to his lack of breakfast consumption, was a little grumpy at first, which made for some initial unpleasantness. He rallied after a caloric boost and returned to his normal only occasionally grumpy self. Lots of cool fishies to look at also helped to improve his disposition.









The aquarium has quite the jellyfish collection. I think I took a picture of each of them. These are the only ones that uploaded.









They also have a seahorse exhibit. This one was just about my undoing. There were so many people, none of them were paying attention to what was around them, and certainly not to what was beneath them (ie my children). I was able to maneuver Ben to the front of most tanks, but Ry, who was pretty fed up with the people by now too, got to ride on Daddy’s shoulders the entire time. Travis says it was for two hours. It was closer to 30 minutes, but still about 29 minutes too long.









The boys had a nice time. There were more pics of them. Maybe tonight.





From here, we made our way back to the car. I remembered to not laugh at the people still in line to enter the aquarium. Note to self: pre-purchase tickets prior to visiting aquarium.

After a sushi stop (looking at all those fish made us hungry!) we headed south on Highway 1 to make the famous Big Sur drive. Having now completed the trip, I can say I wish we hadn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful. But I think I’m a little spoiled with the beaches in Oregon. You can actually get to them, even when they are rugged. And there are places to stop to get things like coffee. And gas. Probably even diesel, which is really what we needed. And, there are restrooms. None of these things were on this stretch of the highway. The pictures prove that it’s gorgeous. We had some interesting discussions about how people get their homes on the cliffs, where they buy their groceries and how much it must cost to live there. But, I wish we’d just done the 17 mile drive (even tho you have to pay to do it) and then headed on Highway 101 to San Luis Obispo. Hindsight and all that, still a good day, just a lesson learned for any future trips.







San Luis Obispo is a pretty cool town. Travis likens it to a bigger Hood River, maybe a warmer, drier Eugene. We had a nice dinner at Creekside Brewing Company with super service, good food and good beer. The Orange Crème soda and Root Beer were also nice, tho they did make someone a little goofy. Ry decided on the way back to the hotel (which is much, much nicer today) that he’s going to go root beer picking when we get home. He’s just going to pick one from the plant and drink it up. I think giving Ry unlimited access to a plant that produces root beer would be bad. Very, very bad.

Until tomorrow …