{"id":1624,"date":"2013-01-16T10:24:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T15:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=1624"},"modified":"2013-01-16T10:24:24","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T15:24:24","slug":"carmel-monterey-and-17-mile-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/16\/carmel-monterey-and-17-mile-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Carmel, Monterey and 17-Mile Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Saturday the dogs got bored. They said, “Look, Dad – it’s not raining! A nice sunny day, kinda warm temperatures, a full tank of gas… Please, Dad, can we take a ROAD TRIP<\/strong>?”<\/p>\n

(Those of you who know my dogs recognize this as pure fiction.\u00a0 They would never say “please”.)<\/p>\n

So I grabbed some water for the dogs (but none for me, which proved to be a mistake), strapped the dogs into the back seat and sallied forth on a trip to Carmel, Monterey and 17-Mile Drive<\/a>. I plotted a course that would take me south through Gilroy, over to Carmel, along 17-Mile Drive, into Monterey, then back north through a winding mountain pass and up the valley through Morgan Hill. Round trip distance: 145 miles.<\/p>\n

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Monterey Loop<\/p><\/div>\n

The dogs were right: it was a nice day for a drive. Crystal clear, brisk, light traffic. The journey to Monterey was carefree, with no problem with directions or traffic. When we got to Carmel we found a place to park the monster truck on a side street and went for a walk. Carmel (or, to the snobbish, Carmel-by-the-Sea) is a sleepy town that appears to offer nothing but art galleries. The dogs and I wandered around for about 40 minutes and did not find any place to get a cup of coffee. The dogs got a water break; I got nothing.<\/p>\n

But the pups enjoyed the walk because it seems that people who like art galleries also like canines. There were LOTS of dogs on the street.<\/p>\n

Failing to get my coffee, I loaded the dogs back into the truck and went in search of 17-Mile Drive. It was not hard to find as it has its own exit off of CA 1. There is a $9.75 charge to drive the route if you aren’t one of the mega-millionaires who lives there, but it was worth it, just to get the photos (see below). There is a lot of great scenery on 17-Mile Drive. But no coffee.<\/p>\n

It took about an hour to drive the 17 miles because we made so many stops. I am happy to report that the dogs enjoyed their first view of the Pacific Ocean and even felt a little salt spray. So Cha-Cha, our little Puerto Rican street waif, has now seen the Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. How many dogs can say THAT?<\/p>\n

We next hit Monterey, in search of Cannery Row. And coffee. Didn’t find either. In retrospect we got close as I saw Fisherman’s Wharf, which is very near to Cannery Row. But I was getting a caffeine headache and decided to head back. So we drove up CA 1, over the mountains on CA 152 (Jett would have hated it – lots of turns, including many 15 mph hairpin turns) and down into Gilroy, then up through Morgan Hill and back home.<\/p>\n

A good drive. But the coffee I made when I got home was just as good.<\/p>\n

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One of the iconic cypress trees<\/p><\/div>\n

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17-Mile Drive<\/p><\/div>\n

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A bit of color<\/p><\/div>\n

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A golf course that I can’t afford<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sandy beach<\/p><\/div>\n

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More beach<\/p><\/div>\n

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Surf’s up!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Heather?<\/p><\/div>\n

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Spyglass Hill or Pebble Beach<\/p><\/div>\n

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More rocks and water<\/p><\/div>\n

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A view from the heights<\/p><\/div>\n

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More rocks<\/p><\/div>\n

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Glare<\/p><\/div>\n

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Ghost Tree<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday the dogs got bored. They said, “Look, Dad – it’s not raining! A nice sunny day, kinda warm temperatures, a full tank of gas… Please, Dad, can we take a ROAD TRIP?” (Those of you who know my dogs recognize this as pure fiction.\u00a0 They would never say “please”.) So I grabbed some … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,25,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures","category-places-ca","category-places"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-qc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1624"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1648,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624\/revisions\/1648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}