Today was another tour day. We left the city and headed towards Monterey and Carmel. The drive was mostly along the coast, and it's breathtaking. Seeing the waves break along the coast is impressive. The scenery was mind boggling, and I could have spent hours on end just stopping to snap pictures. Alas, that wasn't on the tour plan, but I'll get back to that later. We were lucky in that we were always one step ahead of the forecasted rain, and when it did fall, it was short and sweet.
We stopped in Monterey, a very beautiful town, for lunch. Eating was a pain in the ass, as I burned the roof of my mouth the night before on a hamburger so I have this huge, sensitive spot in my mouth. Fun, fun, fun. We would have wanted to see the Monterey Bay aquarium, but we only had a 1.5 hour stop.
We all got back into the little tour bus, and had to wait for a family of FDAs that was holding us back by being late (turns out, they would be late for all the meeting points, but hey, what can you expect from Floridians). We headed towards Pebble Beach and the 17-mile drive. The scenery was, in a word, wow. Even more impressive. Pebble Beach is a gated community, so white trash like us shouldn't have been there, but it's also touristy, so they allow us to lower property value. And we are talking about significant property value. The railroad barons built their summer estates there; like the marble palace, with 32 types of marble and a bathtub with a black marble fountain in it. These mansions run in the tens of millions of dollars, and it shows.
We stopped at the Pebble Beach golf club, where I shot a picture of the 18th hole as seen from the observation deck of the lounge. We felt a little bit out of place, as the people who attend the golf course wait for months for a tee-off time, and pay 500$ green fees. Ah, the life of the idle rich.
Which brings me to the rant portion of this entry. My god, the US has a sick fascination with shopping. Every friggin tour we went on had at least one shopping portion in it. This one was no other. We stopped in Carmel for close to 2 hours. Don't get me wrong, it's probably a beautiful place to live in, and it looks really nice. But I would really have preferred to spend those 2 hours along the coast, looking at spectacular vistas, than looking at over-expensive, tacky crap for people with more money than taste. One little bit of serendipity. We stopped at a high-end candy store, and I was finally able to buy myself a coffee crisp. Turns out, it's imported from England. Nestle doesn't sell chocolate in the US. I wasn't able to find anything nut free, as even the KitKat, the mainstay of my chocolate habits, are licensed by Reeses and aren't made in nut-free plants. I was devastated when I found that out. So I jumped on the occasion and bought 4 coffee crisps, for a price that amounts to highway robbery. I was jonesing for chocolate, so what could I do?
The drive back wasn't all that notable. I fell asleep and dozed off for most of it. The rain had caught up to us, it was dark, and I was tired. A good plan. We got to the hotel 'round 9pm, and we went to the Moose for dinner, where I had the most decadent chocolate dessert I've ever had. It was also probably the most expensive meal I've ever had, but it was nice.
I have some pictures, and they're going to appear online soon, but not just yet.