California: Pacific Grove & Monterey

Finding an affordable motel for a holiday weekend in the Monterey area is not easy. That's how little sister and I ended up in Pacific Grove in a motel with paper thin walls/ceilings. Nothing a bottle of wine can't fix! Pacific Grove still ended up being a fine jumping off point for a day driving around Big Sur. Housing options are incredibly limited in Big Sur proper.

Pacific Grove is a quaint little golf town on the coast, as evidenced by the fact that we couldn't actually find any bars, just restaurants and a couple wine-bars-slash-gelaterias. Or maybe why we passed a barbershop with a live band playing in it on Pacific Grove's main street. There's a decent selection of restaurants, though, and in the morning we were able to walk along the foggy coastal trail to our afternoon tea appointment at the White Hart which we'd strolled past the night before. After our very Victorian lunch, we headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Canery Row. For such a tourist trap (i.e., it had a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co), we were shocked to find no walk-up place to buy french fries from! Where're two ladies supposed to get an afternoon snack?!

I really enjoyed the animal feedings at the aquarium, and the kelp forest & deep sea exhibits were really lovely, but at its current ticket price, I might hold off on revisiting anytime soon.