MONTEREY TRIP -- START HERE!
California's First Theatre
Originally uploaded by AlexH/lumpySo, I went to Monterey for the Labor Day weekend. No, not Monterey, Mexico.. that might have been more interesting and worth reading.. Monterey, California. Site of a Pop Festival or something that happened in the 60s that wasn’t in Woodstock, I dunno. Anyway, I don’t know too many people in my adopted Bay Area home, so rather than spend a three day weekend on my ass alone watching TV, I thought a change of scenery might Do Me Some Good. I’m sure I’ve written about this somewhere before, but I’m cool with going to some place alone where I don’t anyone, as long as I can somehow write about it. A lot of the travel literature I read usually ends up involving some worldly type going on some spiritual journey in Asia or South America and meeting a bunch of locals and having adventures and humorous anecdotes and all that hippie dippy nonsense, but there are a few curmudgeonly writers like Bill Bryson who seem to think that human interaction is vastly overrated. Bryson spent half of his book about Australia talking about all the things that could kill you; his book about England, all he did was talk about all the annoying people who tried to chat him up, and his American book was all about being disappointed by everything. He spent his Appalachian hike with a friend of his, but mostly just bitched about that guy.. in short, Bryson rules! I like the fact that somebody could make money off of traveling around doing what they _want_ to do without much input, without bothering much to involve themselves in the local culture and not manage to look like an Ugly American.
Since I was only going somewhere 2 hours away and still in this country, I wasn’t worried much about that last part. Also, considering there were, and pardon my pun, tons, of morbidly obese pale white tourists standing around eating junk food, I looked alright in comparison.
Anyway, in case you didn’t know, Monterey was the first city in Arizona, back when Russians controlled that part of the country. Because they were losing too much money in the Civil War of 1812, they had to sell the land to Chief Crazylegs and his band of Ozark Indians, who then moved the entire town to California. They participated in water polo, abacus races, dodge ball, and invented culinary classics like Macaroni Salad and also, beans. At least, that’s what it says in Wikipedia. I went there because it was close enough to drive to, and the shoreline is supposed to be really nice.
By the way, if you’re traveling from the Bay Area down the 101 for the Labor Day weekend, take Lewis Black’s advice and just hammer a big nail right into your eye, because it would be on the same level of intelligence as volunteering to be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic with the sun beating down. The A/C in my car working? Not so much. So the 2 hour drive turned into almost 4, but fortunately for me that was the most unpleasant part of the trip (although there are a few runners-up which I will get to later) And even though the traffic was horrendous, the California scenery is always attractive, as you usually drive by a bunch of hills or mountains. The extended 5 mph ride through Gilroy smelled especially garlicky that day, and I noticed a lot of other crops and farms through the rolling hills, as opposed to the cornfields in the Iowa flatlands that used to put me to sleep 10 years ago. I switched from CA-156 to CA-1 and got to the town of Sand City. An appropriate name for a city, where on one side all I could see were huge sand dunes, while on the other side, a Petsmart, Target, Home Depot, and Applebee’s. (That must be the “city” part) Closer to the ocean, I could see a bunch of nice hotels, a beach, and just a slew of kites and flying shit in the air. At one point, I drove past a huge dune where somebody wrote “Love You All!” on it.. even though that was obviously a communist message, I was sad that I couldn’t stop anywhere to take some pictures of the sites.
So, about 20 hours later (5 minutes without traffic), I ended up in Monterey. I got to my motel, which was a Super 8. So, I can’t really say too much about it, it was an f’n’ Super 8.. there really didn’t seem to be any ghetto motels in the whole town (Although if there was, I’m sure I would have picked it!), but it had what I needed. Clean towels, hot water, a TV, microwave, fridge, sheets that looked acceptable without one of those wands that detect semen and feces. It wasn’t really close to the beach, but wasn’t actually far, and there was a bike/walking path across the street that actually went far enough down to where the downtown area started. Also, there was this weird shopping area, called “Del Monte Plaza” or something right across the street, though you could hardly see it was there because it was in the woods. The city planners seemed to put a bunch of restrictions on it so all the buildings would be low, not garish, and the driveways and parking lots would be very directed and inconspicuous. So, while it was full of chain restaurants like PF Chang's and McFridillienaginabees and PetSmart and what-have-you, it didn’t bother me too much. And there was even a Whole Foods right there, which is known to have the best in Sodium Enriched Home-style Deli Goodness, so I did go there for a couple of my meals.
I can probably count the number of times I had interaction with a person this weekend, not including the times I said “I’ll have a salsa verde and a medium drink with that.” Or, “no, I can’t afford the VIP room, sorry”. Human interaction #1: The lady who checked me in at the Super 8 noticed my 404 area code and asked if I was from Atlanta. I said yeah, but I’ve been living in Oakland for a year. She then said “Oh, yes, you must not be having a hard time adjusting to the crime rate in Oakland, then!” , At first, was about to say “fuck you!” but I gave her this look that was like “…go ON”, and she said she used to live in Tucker (Gateway to Doraville!), but couldn’t deal with all the crime. She was kind of apologetic and said it was still a nice place to live, just not for her. I wasn’t really all that offended, but come on. Oakland is currently in the grips of this huge restaurant robbery-takeover crime wave, it’s making people afraid to go out after dark.. and this is like, all over town. In Atlanta, just don’t go south of I-20 and you’ll be fine. Sheesh.
So after my lunch (a late lunch because I left at 10:30 am and didn’t get there until 11 pm on Tuesday. Though don’t worry, it was still light out, because I’m only using hyperbole. I went to the hotel’s lobby to get one of the illustrated downtown maps of the city. You know, the kind where it’s sponsored by all the restaurants and shops in town, and those just happen to be the most prominent attractions on the map? Actually though, it seemed to have a decent layout with the “path of history” drawn on it, and amazingly, that didn’t mean it led you to “the 1st Quizno’s in Monterey” or anything. I ended up walking from the hotel down the bike path and on through the town, following the cheesy path, which takes you past all these old adobe buildings, houses that were set up for generals, Robert Louis Stevenson’s house, California’s first Theatre, etc etc. It was kind of neat, and you really have to be very not self-conscious that you’re walking around town with a hotel map. I didn’t look like a giant douche at all, I’m sure!
The path finally led down to the beach, which for the most part is a mini-San Francisco shoreline, but not as windy and a little more low-key. There’s another bike path that goes alongside the beach and up by Cannery Row to the Aquarium, and then there’s the hill that goes down to the beach itself. There’s a lot of seaweed washed up on the shore, but it’s not the kind that I’m used to.. this was the thick, bright green, leafy stuff, not the slimy strands of nastiness that I remember from the beaches in South Carolina and Florida. The water’s still too cold to get in without a wetsuit, but, just as in many parts of the CA coast, there are these awesome rock formations that jut right off the shoreline where a bunch of birds and sea lions get on. A little further down is Fisherman’s Wharf, which is pretty much like Pier 39 in SF but with more fat people. I’ll never understand what attracts fat people to rickety piers just because they have a lot of cotton candy, clam chowder eateries, and cheesy tourist shops that sell XXL+ sized t shirts that say “Hey, I’m A Big Fat Retard!” (sorry, I couldn’t think of any of the actual sayings) At the end of the pier is this guy with a cart full of exotic birds, and a sign that says “Bring Your Kids to See George’s Birds”. He really did have some cool-ass birds that would perch on people’s arms and never once shit on anyone, so I think George had a pretty good idea, except he wasn’t charging anybody to pet the birds. He kept talking about how he liked kids, and I got kind of a Michael Jackson vibe from the guy and decided to just walk back to the shore.