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So I had a decision this morning: Do I attempt to check out Monterey, at least a little bit, or go to Carmel?
Screw Monterey. Monterey, you and your Super 8, which has horribly embarrassing delusions of non-pet loving grandeur hath screwed me and I'm taking my dog and my touristy road-trippin' love elsewhere.
So, Carmel. Its a beautiful town, once boasting Clint Eastwood as mayor. I think it would've been really cool if I spied him just tooling around town in an old beat up pick-up truck with that monkey from that one movie he did hanging out the passenger side window. But that didn't happen.
Definitely seems to swing towards the older, settled, and somewhat moneyed end of the spectrum, but in a comfortable and laid back (read: not snobby or pretentious or anti-gawker) way. Very peaceful. Lots of little shops in town, many of which are centered around courtyards where people sit and chat between tables over some wine and fresh seafood. I stopped into a local market to look around, and they were BBQing out front.
This little girl was so cute - she sit all quiet and stare at the sea, watching a wave approach, and then when it finally crashed ashore, she'd squeal in delight (loud as hell, too) and jump and down and clap. Again and again and again. Lovely.
I love this picture of the birds in flight.
Bird tracks!
I love his expressions. They're very... expressive.
I also love not wearing make-up, for a change. I feel like a rebel. Take THAT Las Vegas!
(Sez the girl flashing some top-boob. Hmm..)
Zack is slooooooowly getting used to sand. If it's harder packed, he can trot along very well, but the soft dry sand that piles up into drifts freaks him out. He walks through it very gingerly (as one woman put it, he tiptoes) and its probably the funniest looking thing ever. He looks like those Midwestern girls who come to Vegas wearing hoochie dresses and 4.5 inch high heels they bought just for the trip: they glump around the casinos trying to look sexy but just end up looking like badly shod horses. The toe hits down first, the heel splats somewhere behind... Tragic. Everyone on the beach laughed at him. And then he wrote in his diary about killing us all (not true, but I bet he thought about it for one dark, doggy-goth second).
Dog foot. I think it looks strange, like prehistoric.
We drive a bit back through Carmel, admiring the amazing houses: they vary greatly in sq footage, but all are beautifully done in wood and stone, with a whimsical eye to design that seems to be a successful marriage of Hobbit home and something out of a fairytale. The curving lines of the roofs and stone are obviously man made, but natural enough looking in their build that they don't seem out of place despite being surrounded by ever color flower imaginable, the ocean and centuries old trees. Its a difficult thing to achieve, I think. Notice the kooky wave in the roofs:
Then it was back on the 101, this time to San Francisco!
With all the farming in this area, there are loads of road side stands and stores, some of which have contents I'm sure change with the seasons. When I passed this, however, I had to stop:
My brother is a garlic freak, so that was point one. But also I realized I was near Gilroy, CA, which is the garlic capital of the world don't you know (according to Gilroy, that is - but did you know that China is actually the worlds leading garlic producer? Who would've thunk?). There's even a huge festival there every year - in Gilroy, not China. Though China might have one too. They throw some pretty awesome festivals, after all. Heres the Gilroy one: http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/
Piles of garlic, everywhere. Garlic in olives, wreaths, dips, salsas, chips, on nuts, it was.... um, nuts. The pic on the right is their wall of hot sauces.
We stopped a few miles North in Gilroy proper for gas, and you would not beLIEVE the smell. The whole city reeks of garlic! Like REEKS! Gilroy is the epitome of a distastrous first date. All of its inhabitants must also eat garlic every day so that it cancels out. It was crazy - like being engulfed in a giant garlic burp.
I did not eat garlic, I ate cherries. See?
My first glimpse of downtown San Francisco:
I stayed at the Hotel Serrano, which is part of the Klimpton Hotels chain. Fantastic. Freakin fantastic. Upon checking in, he gave me a queen corner room and everyone gushed over the dog. $103 a night, on the twelfth floor, right by Union Square. Nice. The hotel has a gorgeous lobby, stocked with lovely upholstered chairs and wooden tables with old style (read: wooden not cardboard) board games available for play there or in your room and they host a complimentary wine hour every night from 5-6pm. And yes, pets are invited.
The room from the door, the view from the room.
The lovely robe provided for my stay, as well as some boxers for you menfolk (those are purchase only - nobody wants to re-use boxers your junk touched, menfolk. thanks.)
This is hysterical - hard to see from the photo, but I went online sign up for Kimptons friends program, since I have at least one, perhaps two, more stay(s) with them on this trip. The questionnaire is very witty, including this question:
Which reads, "How do you like your room?" (select one)
So while I was slinging my stuff into the room, I got a call from Brendan, a guy who used to frequent NFI until he moved back to the Bay area last year. He was actually in the city, and invited me down to, sigh, and Irish bar. I was up for it, especially when they said the dog could sit out back on the patio with us. The city is hugely pet friendly, from the numerous outdoor restaurants that'll let you dine with your pet, to the hotels and parks and beaches that welcome dogs to, yes, the taxis:
haha! Our driver was zooming up and down those hills - I think Zack's expression mirrored my own!
When we got to the bar, Brendan and the gang (his kickball team!) had beers on the table and burgers on the grill. Seriously, the bar lets them break out the grill and BBQ on the back patio.
Zacks first burger, and accidental first beer.
Needless to say, the night devolved in to drunken glory and late night runs for handmade personal pizzas with spinach and feta and why did somebody order extra garlic? Taxi ride back to the hotel, wash face, eat pizza, realize that was the wrong order, sleep.
Day Two
Wake up, feel great, have triscuits and hummus and a grapefruit sprite zero for breakfast bc I'm too lazy to hunt for something else, and load up the dog and car for site seeing.
Bay Bridge.
Haight Ashbury!
Its a neat district, completely what you'd expect - artsy in both idea and practice, with mosaic tiled buildings, murals between storefronts, and shops stocked with your typical hippie essentials: $14 Indian tunics and long scrunch skirts for the oldies, $89 dollar knock-offs of the same shit for the newbies. Coffee shops with alternative milk choices, indie movie theater, cafe's with sandwiches on house made bread, mom & pop mexican joints, etc., as well as an abundance of homeless shouting non-sensical rants at nobody in particular while their one-eyed, tired looking dogs stare elsewhere in apparent apathy.
I totally dug it.
The hills in SF are every bit as nutty as you might have heard. Going down hill is just riding the brake and praying. Going uphill at a 70 degree angle in a Prius is sweat inducing even before you realize you cant see over your dashboard to the street/intersection in front of you. Yes, I hear you beeping person in the car behind me. Now you know how I feel when your sorry California asses are f-ing up my drive time back home in Vegas. Payback, bitches.
I dig the row houses:
Next stop, Fishermans Wharf (and etc)
Okay. Most people who know me know I really like seafood, usually the ridiculously fresh and simply adorned (read: not breaded, fried, or covered in alfredo sauce). So the following had me in near tears:
Those were the couple pics I had time to snap, but one section of the wharf featured a line of kiosks laden with fresh seafood. And when I say fresh, I mean they came in that morning off the boats above. One of the dudes cracking the yummy-ness open says each vendor basically has a standing order with one or more ships. Then they add to that for busy season, or if someone pulls in extra catch or something unexpected, its offered up for dibs. There was fresh crab by the pound, fried and cocktail-style bay shrimp, oysters, calamari, clam chowder in sourdough bowls, etc, and ice cold beer.
I was sorely tempted by this discovery, soooooooorely tempted. Two reasons to move on: one, I had the dog, and holding onto the dog leash and cracking crab legs require more hands than I have, and two, cioppino.
I like cioppino, for it is tasty, and Fisherman's Wharf is home to a little place called Cioppino's (http://www.cioppinosonthewharf.com), which is known for its.... well, you get the idea. So I sauntered down there, where they let me sit outside on the boardwalk, and ordered me up a big bowl of heaven with a side of pinot grigio.
As we waited, 5o00 people said hi to Zack. He is a very friendly dog, but at this point he's kind of like, "seriously? with the touching? enough. I need space. please, no more pictures..." So I distracted him with this:
And then it arrived:
Red snapper, mussels, calamari, shrimp, clams in a tomato/fennel broth, topped with dungeness crab and think, crunchy sourdough garlic toast.
This did not suck.
Belly, heart and head full, time for home.
Through the fog,
Up the hills,
And after an after dark jog through the city, to bed.
Screw Monterey. Monterey, you and your Super 8, which has horribly embarrassing delusions of non-pet loving grandeur hath screwed me and I'm taking my dog and my touristy road-trippin' love elsewhere.
So, Carmel. Its a beautiful town, once boasting Clint Eastwood as mayor. I think it would've been really cool if I spied him just tooling around town in an old beat up pick-up truck with that monkey from that one movie he did hanging out the passenger side window. But that didn't happen.
Definitely seems to swing towards the older, settled, and somewhat moneyed end of the spectrum, but in a comfortable and laid back (read: not snobby or pretentious or anti-gawker) way. Very peaceful. Lots of little shops in town, many of which are centered around courtyards where people sit and chat between tables over some wine and fresh seafood. I stopped into a local market to look around, and they were BBQing out front.
This little girl was so cute - she sit all quiet and stare at the sea, watching a wave approach, and then when it finally crashed ashore, she'd squeal in delight (loud as hell, too) and jump and down and clap. Again and again and again. Lovely.
I love this picture of the birds in flight.
Bird tracks!
I love his expressions. They're very... expressive.
I also love not wearing make-up, for a change. I feel like a rebel. Take THAT Las Vegas!
(Sez the girl flashing some top-boob. Hmm..)
Zack is slooooooowly getting used to sand. If it's harder packed, he can trot along very well, but the soft dry sand that piles up into drifts freaks him out. He walks through it very gingerly (as one woman put it, he tiptoes) and its probably the funniest looking thing ever. He looks like those Midwestern girls who come to Vegas wearing hoochie dresses and 4.5 inch high heels they bought just for the trip: they glump around the casinos trying to look sexy but just end up looking like badly shod horses. The toe hits down first, the heel splats somewhere behind... Tragic. Everyone on the beach laughed at him. And then he wrote in his diary about killing us all (not true, but I bet he thought about it for one dark, doggy-goth second).
Dog foot. I think it looks strange, like prehistoric.
We drive a bit back through Carmel, admiring the amazing houses: they vary greatly in sq footage, but all are beautifully done in wood and stone, with a whimsical eye to design that seems to be a successful marriage of Hobbit home and something out of a fairytale. The curving lines of the roofs and stone are obviously man made, but natural enough looking in their build that they don't seem out of place despite being surrounded by ever color flower imaginable, the ocean and centuries old trees. Its a difficult thing to achieve, I think. Notice the kooky wave in the roofs:
Then it was back on the 101, this time to San Francisco!
With all the farming in this area, there are loads of road side stands and stores, some of which have contents I'm sure change with the seasons. When I passed this, however, I had to stop:
My brother is a garlic freak, so that was point one. But also I realized I was near Gilroy, CA, which is the garlic capital of the world don't you know (according to Gilroy, that is - but did you know that China is actually the worlds leading garlic producer? Who would've thunk?). There's even a huge festival there every year - in Gilroy, not China. Though China might have one too. They throw some pretty awesome festivals, after all. Heres the Gilroy one: http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/
Piles of garlic, everywhere. Garlic in olives, wreaths, dips, salsas, chips, on nuts, it was.... um, nuts. The pic on the right is their wall of hot sauces.
We stopped a few miles North in Gilroy proper for gas, and you would not beLIEVE the smell. The whole city reeks of garlic! Like REEKS! Gilroy is the epitome of a distastrous first date. All of its inhabitants must also eat garlic every day so that it cancels out. It was crazy - like being engulfed in a giant garlic burp.
I did not eat garlic, I ate cherries. See?
My first glimpse of downtown San Francisco:
I stayed at the Hotel Serrano, which is part of the Klimpton Hotels chain. Fantastic. Freakin fantastic. Upon checking in, he gave me a queen corner room and everyone gushed over the dog. $103 a night, on the twelfth floor, right by Union Square. Nice. The hotel has a gorgeous lobby, stocked with lovely upholstered chairs and wooden tables with old style (read: wooden not cardboard) board games available for play there or in your room and they host a complimentary wine hour every night from 5-6pm. And yes, pets are invited.
The room from the door, the view from the room.
The lovely robe provided for my stay, as well as some boxers for you menfolk (those are purchase only - nobody wants to re-use boxers your junk touched, menfolk. thanks.)
This is hysterical - hard to see from the photo, but I went online sign up for Kimptons friends program, since I have at least one, perhaps two, more stay(s) with them on this trip. The questionnaire is very witty, including this question:
Which reads, "How do you like your room?" (select one)
- A mess
- Away from the elevator
- Corner room
- High Floor
- Low Floor
- Near Elevator
- Not Spinning around me
- Quiet room
So while I was slinging my stuff into the room, I got a call from Brendan, a guy who used to frequent NFI until he moved back to the Bay area last year. He was actually in the city, and invited me down to, sigh, and Irish bar. I was up for it, especially when they said the dog could sit out back on the patio with us. The city is hugely pet friendly, from the numerous outdoor restaurants that'll let you dine with your pet, to the hotels and parks and beaches that welcome dogs to, yes, the taxis:
haha! Our driver was zooming up and down those hills - I think Zack's expression mirrored my own!
When we got to the bar, Brendan and the gang (his kickball team!) had beers on the table and burgers on the grill. Seriously, the bar lets them break out the grill and BBQ on the back patio.
Zacks first burger, and accidental first beer.
Needless to say, the night devolved in to drunken glory and late night runs for handmade personal pizzas with spinach and feta and why did somebody order extra garlic? Taxi ride back to the hotel, wash face, eat pizza, realize that was the wrong order, sleep.
Day Two
Wake up, feel great, have triscuits and hummus and a grapefruit sprite zero for breakfast bc I'm too lazy to hunt for something else, and load up the dog and car for site seeing.
Bay Bridge.
Haight Ashbury!
Its a neat district, completely what you'd expect - artsy in both idea and practice, with mosaic tiled buildings, murals between storefronts, and shops stocked with your typical hippie essentials: $14 Indian tunics and long scrunch skirts for the oldies, $89 dollar knock-offs of the same shit for the newbies. Coffee shops with alternative milk choices, indie movie theater, cafe's with sandwiches on house made bread, mom & pop mexican joints, etc., as well as an abundance of homeless shouting non-sensical rants at nobody in particular while their one-eyed, tired looking dogs stare elsewhere in apparent apathy.
I totally dug it.
The hills in SF are every bit as nutty as you might have heard. Going down hill is just riding the brake and praying. Going uphill at a 70 degree angle in a Prius is sweat inducing even before you realize you cant see over your dashboard to the street/intersection in front of you. Yes, I hear you beeping person in the car behind me. Now you know how I feel when your sorry California asses are f-ing up my drive time back home in Vegas. Payback, bitches.
I dig the row houses:
Next stop, Fishermans Wharf (and etc)
Okay. Most people who know me know I really like seafood, usually the ridiculously fresh and simply adorned (read: not breaded, fried, or covered in alfredo sauce). So the following had me in near tears:
Those were the couple pics I had time to snap, but one section of the wharf featured a line of kiosks laden with fresh seafood. And when I say fresh, I mean they came in that morning off the boats above. One of the dudes cracking the yummy-ness open says each vendor basically has a standing order with one or more ships. Then they add to that for busy season, or if someone pulls in extra catch or something unexpected, its offered up for dibs. There was fresh crab by the pound, fried and cocktail-style bay shrimp, oysters, calamari, clam chowder in sourdough bowls, etc, and ice cold beer.
I was sorely tempted by this discovery, soooooooorely tempted. Two reasons to move on: one, I had the dog, and holding onto the dog leash and cracking crab legs require more hands than I have, and two, cioppino.
I like cioppino, for it is tasty, and Fisherman's Wharf is home to a little place called Cioppino's (http://www.cioppinosonthewharf.com), which is known for its.... well, you get the idea. So I sauntered down there, where they let me sit outside on the boardwalk, and ordered me up a big bowl of heaven with a side of pinot grigio.
As we waited, 5o00 people said hi to Zack. He is a very friendly dog, but at this point he's kind of like, "seriously? with the touching? enough. I need space. please, no more pictures..." So I distracted him with this:
And then it arrived:
Red snapper, mussels, calamari, shrimp, clams in a tomato/fennel broth, topped with dungeness crab and think, crunchy sourdough garlic toast.
This did not suck.
Belly, heart and head full, time for home.
Through the fog,
Up the hills,
And after an after dark jog through the city, to bed.
so seriously loving this blog! do go on...
ReplyDeleteI wanna go on a road trip!!! And I wanna meet your dog...bring him to Tucson when you come in September! :)
ReplyDeleteSuch a great blog!
ReplyDeleteand... yes.. cioppinno is The.Best.Thing.Ever. The best restaurant cioppinno I've ever had is from a place near Half Moon Bay (just south of SF on the coast), but I must say I have a great family recipe for the stuff.. using ONLY fresh seafood (which includes whatever we've captured, ex: rock lobster, mussels, clams, all kinds of fish and so importantly.. crab. I love crab season. OH.SO.YUMMY.