Seeing Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home design in Oak Park and the Robie House in Hyde Park at the University of Chicago campus motivated me to take a closer look at Frank Lloyd Wright house design for the Walker Residence, currently a private home in Carmel, California. The past few May days have been glorious around these parts. Big Sur for some more nature time is on my agenda today.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Walker Residence (1948) is on the rocks at the south point of Carmel Beach, Carmel, California.

Scenic Road, Carmel was parked up on a beautiful 60-degree cloudless evening, although about half the people stayed in their cars rather than walk the beach.

Looking north along Carmel Beach. Monterey and Pacific Grove are on the other side of the hills.

The Walker Residence house has angles.

And maybe angels too.

I photographed this place during January 2010 when swells and waves of 25+ feet were breaking all along the coast. The waves were lowest around the Walker Residence.

The southern angled sun shadows and rain clouds of winter were not present in the late May sunset last evening.

Low tide provided an opportunity to get a little closer to the house.

I couldn’t resist and I had to get closer.

Like Jack without my Rose I stood at the peaked bow of the house and looked west over the sea before me. For this moment I was the King of California.

The Walker Residence truly points west in the bowhaus style.

Sea Otter Encounter

Sea otters use kelp as a tool to float, rest and eat. I spied a sea otter only about 20 feet offshore in this bull kelp patch of Carmel Bay in front of the Walker Residence. There are about 2,000 sea otters in the central coast area of Monterey Bay to Big Sur.

This big sea otter was checking me out while I photographed for several minutes.

Pebble Beach Lodge and Golf Links are in the background across Carmel Bay.

The streets of Carmel are still pretty quiet in late May on a weeknight. Lots of hotel vacancy signs.

You otter visit.

The Monterey Peninsula is a place with nearly 200 hotels in three fairly small towns in Carmel (pop. 4,000), Pacific Grove (15,000) and Monterey (28,000)where the total year-round population is less than 50,000 people. Seaside, Marina, Del Rey Oaks, Carmel Valley and Pebble Beach add to the surroundings to give the area a real population a bit over 100,000 people. Salinas is a city of nearly 150,000 people that you might think would encroach on the Monterey Peninsula. Despite over 200 years of development in this area of the California Central Coast, the Fort Ord National Monument, agricultural fields, and hills separate the Monterey Peninsula from the Salinas Valley and the rest of the world.

Any single day has thousands or tens of thousands of visitors coming to the Monterey Peninsula. There is stuff to see in Monterey like marine life, incredible scenic beauty, beaches, restaurants, retail shops, woods, ocean vistas and more.

Pacific Grove, California

The western front of the Monterey Peninsula is Pacific Grove on the north side and Pebble Beach/Carmel forming the south side of the peninsula jutting out into the Pacific Ocean on the southern side of Monterey Bay. Santa Cruz, California, almost Surf City, USA, is the northernmost town of Monterey Bay forty miles up Highway 1.

I tried to study computer science, physics and chemistry one year at UCSC in the early 1980s. Way too many distractions for a laboratory scientist in the redwoods and on the beaches of Santa Cruz, California. I love that place. I hate that place.

In the agricultural fields is where I ended up completing my undergraduate degree at U.C. Davis in the central valley of California. No distractions there.

I should rediscover Santa Cruz now as a travel writer. I just can’t stand the traffic congestion on the north side of Monterey Bay to go there more frequently.

Really, I am going to Pacific Grove

For at least three weeks now I have been wanting to get my body down to the sea four miles away on the Monterey Peninsula in Pacific Grove and see the May iceplant flowers. We had April showers here in Monterey with an uncommon heavy rain storm for the California Central Coast a couple weeks back this late in the spring. That might be the last rain for months.

The rain rarely falls in this area from June to August, although it can still be cold with wet coastal fog in the summer months, and sometimes the rain storms don’t start again until November. This year has recorded some of the lowest rainfall totals for the California Central Coast area going back to like the 1870s.

In January 2012 I wrote about Pacific Grove and mentioned the iceplant flowers in May. Today I walked the Pacific Grove oceanfront trail and photographed the magic carpet of purple flowers and a sea otter hanging out by the shore.

Please someone with true knowledge tell me what the plant species is for these Pacific Grove flowers? These are a popular web photo from Pacific Grove but I came up with no reliable source of identification after about 30 minutes of internet searches.

Pacific Grove Ocean View Avenue has a mile-long dedicated dirt walking trail with several benches. These photos are all west of Lover’s Point.

View looking northwest from Pacific Grove, California with May flowers.

The bench you cannot see. One of the places I like to hang out on the waterfront in Pacific Grove is at the oceanside bench behind the plant on the right of this photo.

Believe me when I say some days I just leave it all behind and spend a good part of the day sitting by the Pacific Ocean in these Pacific Grove places. My father-in-law died of leukemia before my wife and I married in the 1980s. He once said to me shortly before he died, “Don’t spend your life working a job”. 

My wife thinks I have taken that wisdom too seriously.

Pacific Grove houses along this Ocean View Avenue stretch have million dollar views.

Seriously, these houses will cost over $1,000,000 if you have such aspirations.

My wife and I live on the hills of Monterey. We can see the ocean from our place, and even the lights of Santa Cruz on clear nights, but the ocean is a mile away and a Pacific Grove close-up is a long walk or a short drive in the car or a damn near perfect bike ride down the hill and back.

This section of the waterfront is the most lush area of iceplant flowers along the coastal trail in Pacific Grove. This is about a ten minute walk west of Lovers Point.

This is a bench in Pacific Grove where I have had two great encounters with sea otters swimming near the shoreline.

Sea otter at Pacific Grove.

There was a man standing by me who said this was the first sea otter he had seen in the wild. I told him it was a great sighting since they generally are not so close to shore to be this visible to the eye.

Sea otter close-up, Pacific Grove.

Sea otters typically do not swim close enough to the shoreline to photograph without a telephoto lens. The picture above is from my simple Nikon point-and-shoot camera. I think today I shot the best photo I have ever captured of a sea otter in Monterey Bay. And this cute thing lives rent free on the Monterey Peninsula.

I didn’t tell the man I was talking to today, but I will tell readers that the population of sea otters on the Monterey Peninsula is basically unchanged since the 1970s when I was a high school student at Seaside High working on a project to census sea otters in Monterey County. KidsPlanet.org sea otter history. There was growth in the 1980s and 1990s, but viruses and infections sickened the otter population, possibly from human waste entering the ocean. There were about 1,200 sea otters along the Monterey County coast in 1977 when I helped count them and the population is 2,000 in number now 35 years later in 2012.

This February 28, 2012 article from the New York Times gives some recent assessment of the sea otter population with the number 2,700 otters around California being one 2012 statistic I saw in a couple of sources.

In the early 19th century there were hundreds of thousands of sea otters along the California coast. Fur hunting slaughtered the population to extinction, except a small group of 50 otters on the Big Sur coast survived, and the otters today along Monterey County shores are mostly from these 20th century survivors left to breed to the present time. Sea otters are a protected species.

This is Pacific Grove, California.

Pacific Grove, California

There is an inscription on the other side of this bench in the picture below.

“Not a care in the world!

I am down by the sea,

With the wind and the waves

telling me I am free.”

Thank You Barack Obama. Fort Ord National Monument made my day! 

Last November I was in downtown Los Angeles in a suite at the Sheraton L.A. on a rainy day. The hotel upgraded me complimentary to a full suite in recognition of my SPG Platinum elite status. I kind of regret letting my SPG status lapse to Gold for 2012 now that I have this SPG Amex Star gig for the year. Sitting at the desk looking out the large window at the puddle covered rooftop below my room from the some-teenth floor of the Sheraton; even though it was a Friday morning, in my mind I thought it was Saturday. 

I wanted an easy thinking blog post to write.

I wrote about Fort Ord, California that November morning.

Fort Ord, California is my birthplace.

Fort Ord is a location less than five miles from my home in Monterey, where there was once a hospital where I was born, a hospital since removed.

Now the former Fort Ord Army Base is Fort Ord National Monument by Barack Obama Presidential proclamation on April 20, 2012.

My birthplace is a National Monument.

How cool is that?

Fort Ord National Monument Presidential Proclamation

Here is the official White House Presidential Proclamation making Fort Ord a National Monument.

The point being that over 20 square miles of open land is being preserved along the central coast of California in Monterey County as Fort Ord National Monument.

In the heart of California’s Central Coast, the former Fort Ord encompasses a sweeping landscape of vivid beauty and rich natural diversity. One of the few remaining expanses of large, contiguous open space in the increasingly developed Monterey Bay area, this area is a rolling landscape long treasured for recreation, scientific research, outdoor education, and historical significance. Originating in the Pleistocene Epoch, ancient dunes provide the foundation for this landscape’s unique array of plant and wildlife communities. The area is also notable for its historical significance, including its role in the Spanish settlement of California and in the military training of generations of American soldiers.

Fort Ord National Monument – established April 20, 2012 by President Barack Obama presidential proclamation.

The drive into Salinas last week to attend the Steinbeck Festival reminded me of how rural the countryside is between Monterey and Salinas. Salinas (pop. 144,000) and Monterey (pop. 30,000) are two towns that have over two centuries of history and even today there are basically three roads between these Monterey County centers of commerce with the southern route at Highway 68, Reservation Road from Marina around Fort Ord grounds, and Highway 183 at the Monterey Bay crossroads in the town of Castroville or you can also take Highway 101 from Prunedale even farther to the north into Salinas.

Fort Ord encompasses much of the land between Monterey and Salinas. The agricultural fields of Salinas lie mostly in the bottoms of the valley. Fort Ord has a unique microenvironment of being land built over millions of years from ocean activity on the sand dunes.

Nearly two and a half centuries ago, as Americans fought for independence far to the east, these lands were traversed by a group of settlers led by Spanish Lieutenant Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza. In 1775-1776, Anza established the first overland route from “New Spain,” as Mexico was then known, to San Francisco, opening the way for expanded Spanish settlement of California. The diaries kept on this nearly 2,000-mile journey were used to identify the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, approximately 6 miles of which pass through the Fort Ord area. Although much of the historic route currently passes through urban areas, the undeveloped expanse of the Fort Ord area is likely quite similar to the open landscape experienced by Anza and by the Costanoan (now commonly referred to as Ohlone) peoples who lived in what is now the Central Coast region of California.

Fort Ord National Monument – established April 20, 2012 by President Barack Obama presidential proclamation.

The highway is alive tonight
But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes
I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light
Searchin’ for the ghost of Tom Joad

- Bruce Springsteen “The Ghost of Tom Joad”

Bruce Springsteen’s music career is one that I have followed since 1972 when I was fortunate enough to be in radio distance of a great rock radio station in Norfolk, Virginia that played Greetings from Asbury Park tunes regularly when I was in 6th grade and lived at Fort Eustis, Virginia.

The Ghost of Tom Joad is one of Bruce’s albums I listen to more frequently these days. Here is youTube video of Bruce performing The Ghost of Tom Joad.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Only a couple of years ago did I finally hear a reference that Tom Joad was the protagonist of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The novel won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize.

Like Sherlock Holmes I have major gaps in my knowledge base. I can talk Dostoevsky and Gogol, but I’m not too familiar with Steinbeck and Faulkner. Consequently, I never read any John Steinbeck before this year and I still haven’t read The Grapes of Wrath. But, like Bruce Springsteen and Woody Guthrie before him, I’ve seen the 1940 John Ford movie.

The basic story is farmers from Oklahoma during the 1930s great depression lose their farm and the dustbowl, a major drought that makes growing crops near impossible in Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas forces hundreds of thousands of migrants to move to California looking for work and land.

Tom Joad and family come to California and experience life in the migrant camps. There were hundreds of workers applying for every menial job. Wages were low due to the bargaining power being at the growers’ discretion. Fighting for higher wages was truly a fight between company thugs and workers trying to organize and the result in the novel is Tom Joad ends up killing a farmers association anti-union thug who had killed Tom’s friend and Tom has to flee the migrant camp and leave his family.

Steinbeck (1902-1968) grew up in the Salinas Valley and Monterey Peninsula and he was knowledgeable about agricultural farming and working conditions in the fields. He visited migrant camps in California during the 1930s and wrote stories on different types of people living in conditions of poor sanitation, low wages and food scarcity. People were travelin’ hard in California back then.

The Grapes of Wrath tells a story that was representative of the state of life in California for hundreds of thousands of families at the time it was published. The story bears great relevance to many of the conditions in the country today for people struggling to find work, a home and enough food. Travel for survival is a very different condition than travel for leisure or business work.

32nd annual Steinbeck Festival, Salinas, California May 3-6, 2012

Internet searches over the past year reading stuff about John Steinbeck’s work and life left me wanting to know more about this man who made Monterey County and the California Central Valley agricultural fields and orchards a world-famous location through his American literature.

That is why I jumped on the opportunity to get a press pass to the 32nd annual Steinbeck Festival in Salinas May 3-6, 2012.

Photo: Salinas Valley artichoke plants near Castroville I passed driving back to Monterey from Salinas. “No Trespassing” sign in the foreground and Mount Toro in the background.

While I learned much more about John Steinbeck as a man and writer and traveler through the National Steinbeck Center exhibits and a few seminars, the real immersion in new knowledge I experienced last week at the Steinbeck Festival was learning a great deal about American folksinger Woody Guthrie (1912-1967). I am a music fan and I steered myself to most of the Woody Guthrie seminars.

Woody Guthrie and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, New York City, 1954

Woody Guthrie Centennial 2012

In 1996 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio and Case Western Reserve University in the same city presented a ten-day celebration honoring Woody Guthrie. This was the first major conference organized around presenting the legacy of Woody Guthrie with photos, lectures, films and concerts held in support of the Woody Guthrie Archives.

Robert Santelli organized that event in 1996. I had never heard of Robert Santelli before last weekend at the 32nd annual Steinbeck Festival in Salinas presented in conjunction with the Woody Guthrie Centennial.

Robert Santelli has written books on Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen. He was Vice President of Education and Public Programs for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio (1993-2000), CEO of the Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle (2000-2008) and is currently the Executive Director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles (2008 – present).

A California photographer/journalist I met at the 32nd annual Steinbeck Festival pointed out to me the small group of only about 200 people meant an opportunity to speak directly with people like Robert Santelli during the breaks between seminars and music presentations.

Bob Santelli is one of the driving forces behind the Woody100 centennial events and he gave a dynamic seminar on the legacy of Woody Guthrie last Friday at the Steinbeck Festival in Salinas.

Woody Guthrie also wrote a song “Tom Joad” aka “Ballad of Tom Joad” after seeing the movie The Grapes of Wrath. The story behind the song is Woody sat down at a typewriter one night in New York City with a half-gallon of wine and the next morning the bottle was empty and the song was done. John Steinbeck reportedly said something to the effect that Woody’s 17 verses of Tom Joad could have saved him the trouble of writing a novel.

There was a Steinbeck Festival seminar given by Gavin Cologne-Brookes, American Literature professor at Bath Spa University England, “The Ghost of Tom Joad: Steinbeck, Guthrie and Springsteen”. The seminar was loaded with information about the novel and songs, but he didn’t play any music to enlighten us.

I had never heard Tom Joad by Woody Guthrie and I don’t think the song was played in the three Woody Guthrie musical concerts given over three evenings at the Festival.

Tom Joad – Part 1 and 2 – Woody Guthrie (1940).

“My eyes has been my camera taking pictures of the world and my songs has been my messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls…” Bound for Glory (1943) – Woody Guthrie autobiography.

Nora Guthrie, Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion

The Woody Guthrie Centennial Concert featured Woody Guthrie’s grand-daughter who is musician Arlo Guthrie’s daughter. Arlo is Woody’s son. Sarah Lee performs with her husband Johnny Irion who is the nephew of Thom Steinbeck, John Steinbeck’s son. Although John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie never met, there is now a Steinbeck-Guthrie familial connection.

Sarah Lee and Johnny did a wonderful rendition of “California Stars”, lyrics of Woody Guthrie with music by Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett of Wilco you can hear here in this YouTube video performed by Billy Bragg and Wilco.

Nora Guthrie, Woody Guthrie’s daughter, Arlo Guthrie’s sister and director of the Woody Guthrie Foundation, joins Sarah Lee and Johnny on stage to sing “This Land is Your Land”. Rob Wasserman, bassist extraordinaire, accompanied Sarah Lee and Johnny. Nora Guthrie had a great story to tell about meeting Bob Dylan the first time.

Blogger Disclosure: The basic deal is I got a 3-day press pass to the Steinbeck Festival that allowed me to get a really fantastic experience with hours of lectures, music, film, activities and a chance to meet knowledgeable people. The festival at times seemed like a social activism progressives’ workshop for change in America. #Occupy repeatedly came up as a bright sign in current social awareness. There was top-notch talkin’ and singin’ going on for three days and my experiences would cost regular paying folk about $200 in ticket fees.

Learning a bit of American music, literature and historical culture is the kind of travel experiences I enjoy. I will likely write a couple more posts on the 2012 Steinbeck Festival May 3-6 at the National Steinbeck Center Salinas, California.

That is my payment for free passage to the Steinbeck Festival.

National Steinbeck Center Salinas, California is open year round.

Woody100.com shares the calendar for other Woody Guthrie events happening in 2012.

WoodyGuthrie.org has a thorough listing of about 3,000 Woody Guthrie song lyrics, biography and other educational links.

The Salinas Valley is 100 miles of premium agricultural land in about a ten mile wide strip of valley land sitting between the Gabilan Mountains to the east and Santa Lucia Mountains of Big Sur to the west. The center of Monterey Bay is where the Salinas River meets the sea.

The map on the wall when you enter the John Steinbeck exhibit at the National Steinbeck Center shows Monterey County locations for his novel settings.

John Steinbeck also wrote about travels to Mexico.

Steinbeck traveled to the Soviet Union three times; in 1937 before World War II, in 1947 after the war and again in 1963.

A Russian Journal in 1948 describes his journey through post-war U.S.S.R. Susan Shillinglaw, Steinbeck Scholar and San Jose State University professor, gave a seminar Friday, May 4 at the Steinbeck Festival on Steinbeck’s A Russian Journal.

Traveling 10,000+ miles in 1960 around the USA in a camper truck with his dog Charley provided the material for Travels with Charley: In Search of America.

In search of America reminds me of the Paul Simon song.

Travel changes us. We travelers are always changing.

Of course John Steinbeck writes this sentiment more eloquently.

The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas is holding the 32nd annual Steinbeck Festival May 3-6, 2012 in Salinas, California. NSC provided Loyalty Traveler with a complimentary festival press pass ($150) for this event.

Monterey County residents can visit the Steinbeck Center with a free admission day on Sunday May 6.

Castroville Artichoke Festival happens the weekend of May 19-20, 2012 in the little town of Castroville about 16 miles north of Monterey. This is the 53rd festival. Looks to me like the festival started in 1960, the year I was born not too many miles away from Castroville across the fields of Monterey County. Though back in 1960 some of those fields between Castroville and Monterey were artillery ranges at the former Fort Ord Army Base.

The North Monterey County Chamber of Commerce website states artichokes grown around Castroville provide 75% of the U.S. supply.

I believe it. I just drove through about five miles of artichoke fields today alongside Highway 1 and the sand dunes between Moss Landing and Marina.

I looked at several miles of fields and I am pretty sure I saw over one million artichokes sticking up in the air. The primary annual artichoke harvest is happening now. These artichokes pictured above are sized as large, a bit larger than a softball. These green globe varietal artichokes are perennials and fields produce more than one harvest per year. 

My wife loves artichokes and she can devour a big one like this easily. I usually eat the large ones in two settings since the leaves fill me up in the first round and then in round two I go for the heart at the base of the stem. We steam large artichokes for about 45 minutes. The chewy portion of vegetable on the leaves comes off easily by dragging the leaf between your teeth if you cooked it long enough. The heart is a sweet chunk that you have to work your way to by eating a hundred or so leaves to reach the interior. Artichokes are extremely rich in fiber and anti-oxidants and a provide a dose of natural Vitamin C. Monterey Costco sells four large artichokes for $5.49.

The sand dunes about 0.5 miles in the distance are the barrier to the Pacific Ocean in Monterey Bay. This is low ground by the sea, many hours of the year shrouded in a ground fog layer in this portion of Monterey Bay that is one of the foggiest microclimate locations of the region. These fields near the beaches of Monterey Bay have resisted residential development for the past fifty years.

Castroville is a town of about 6,000 residents surrounded by agricultural fields. Castroville serves as the crossroads for Highway 1 north to Santa Cruz or Highway 183 east to Salinas and is five miles from Highway 101, the major California coastal region traffic corridor for long haul driving. Life slows to two lanes around Monterey by any route.

I bet Woody Guthrie played a song in Castroville at least one time. This is a place to celebrate the workers who bring us our food.

Salinas River State Beach at Moss Landing near Castroville. Moss Landing is a fishing village and a marine sciences research center on Highway 1 in the center of the Monterey Bay coastline.

Lodging for the Artichoke Festival in Castroville

The town of Marina, 7 miles south of Castroville, is the closest location to the Artichoke Festival for a choice of lodging including Holiday Inn Express, Best Western, Ramada, Comfort Inn and Quality Inn. Monterey and Carmel are 16 to 20 miles south and offer all market segments of hotels from budget to luxury.

I’m blogging the Steinbeck Festival May 3-6, 2012

May 3-6, 2012 is the 32nd annual Steinbeck Festival at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California. This year the festival events include the Woody Guthrie Centennial 2012 with films, lectures and music featuring Woody Guthrie’s work.

Last month I watched two movies on the same weekend: The Grapes of Wrath with Henry Fonda as Steinbeck’s character Tom Joad and Bound to Glory, the Woody Guthrie story with David Carradine. Now I know there was a purpose to immersing myself in these two stories on TV. I toured Ed Ricketts lab on Cannery Row, rarely open to the public, earlier this year and I read the book Cannery Row.

I am psyched about attending the Steinbeck Festival this week. I’ll be writing about festival events and tweeting on Twitter and uploading some photos on Facebook. Steinbeck, Guthrie and Springsteen is a seminar not to be missed.

Come check out Monterey County this month before the crowds and fog come in summer. Steinbeck, Guthrie, artichokes, beaches, music, wine and Big Sur.

This is Monterey County.

Here is a tip that made me laugh.

Remember that gate agents deal with a lot of demanding, obnoxious passengers,  and offering a few kind words and a smile goes a long way. John E. DiScala,  founder of travel-advice site johnnyjet.com, reveals that chocolate helps him get  upgraded-or at least moved to a better coach seat-about half the time. DiScala  says he brings one-pound chocolate bars for the gate agents and flight crew, who  have discretion on seating after the cabin door closes.

Of course there is going to be some expense in buying a pound of chocolate, so that strategy isn’t exactly free.

Here is my Loyalty Traveler tip to combine with JohnnyJet’s sage advice for all you hotel travelers wanting a free airline upgrade:

Save up the pillow chocolates from turndown service and see if a bag of little chocolates has the same result!

Club Carlson pillow chocolates.

So why does my Mom say she will boycott the Wynn hotel now?

My sisters prepaid her hotel stay. Turns out that when my mother checked into the Wynn she was asked for the credit card used to prepay the hotel room. She told the desk agent that the room was a birthday gift from her daughters, and then the desk agent asked if her daughter had given her the credit card for check-in.

“Why would I have my daughter’s credit card?” was my mother’s reply.

The Wynn hotel said they could not register her for the room if she didn’t have the credit card used to book the room and she would need to pay for the room with her own credit card (even though the room had been prepaid and the reservation was in my mother’s name).

This kind of set my mother off. If you think I sometimes go on rants here on Loyalty Traveler, all I can say is I am my mother’s son.

Take this resort fee and shove it

My mother provided her own credit card for check-in and then she noticed the room rate included a $20 resort fee. My mother hates resort fees.

I told my mom I had just paid a $40 per night resort fee for the Sheraton Nassau in the Bahamas and that is the way of hotels in resort locations.

My primary complaint about resort fees is there are no loyalty points applied to the resort fee. I don’t see the resort fee as similar to imposed government taxes and to me there seems to be no reason a resort fee should not earn loyalty points. But that doesn’t really matter for a non-chain hotel like the Wynn.

What really set my mother off about the Wynn’s resort fee is the computer screen stated a $20 per day resort fee and the desk agent was telling her the resort fee had increased to $25 per day as of February 1, 2012. Mom wanted to know why the computer screen at the Wynn reception desk and the agent were not feeding her the same line.

After all this hassle to check-in my mother decided to just cancel the hotel stay and go back home. My parents live about 15 miles from the Wynn.

After walking away from reception, she realized that the room was already prepaid, so after a respite to vent, she went back to the desk to attempt check-in for the second time.

She asked about an upgrade for her birthday. The receptionist told her they were a 2,000 room hotel and they couldn’t possibly offer complimentary upgrades for everyone staying for their birthday.

Now if she was willing to fork over another $40 they might have something a little better.

The frustration of check-in kind of spoiled her birthday celebratory mood. She got a room on a high floor overlooking the parking lot.

Hey Wynn! Do you want to help me help my mom end her boycott?

Seriously though. I am not trying to get my mom a free room at Wynn. Although, I think she would be happy if that were the result of this blog post.

A Lesson to Remember

My main point in writing this post is to make people aware of the issues that may arise when you pay for someone else’s hotel room on your credit card, like your daughter or son or parents, and you are not one of the guests checking in.

My parents have never had this problem before and I have used my credit card many times to book and pay for my parents’ hotel stays.

I guess Las Vegas is a city of scammers and Wynn must have been burned on enough occasions to set up their credit card policy.

My father’s birthday is the week after next. I think I’ll drive down to Los Angeles to be there with them at hotel check-in.

I would appreciate comments from people who have run into similar credit card issues at hotels. And if you want to bitch about hotel resort fees, then feel free to comment.

Google Maps showing Spanish Bay Resort, Pebble Beach at lower left of image. [click on image to open full-size].

This is not a hotel review of The Inn at Spanish Bay. This is another post in my Loyalty Traveler series “At Home He’s a Tourist” where I share the sights of the Monterey Peninsula from my walks around local communities near my home.

Walking to Spanish Bay, Pebble Beach

Asilomar State Beach and Sunset Drive see a steady stream of cars on any evening with clear skies as locals, workers, tourists, surfers and stoners come down to the wild western coastline to watch sunset.

Pebble Beach has a $9.25 car fee to enter the gates into the private residential lands of this scenic and exclusive southwestern point of the Monterey Peninsula. The famous Lodge at Pebble Beach can be seen from Carmel Beach, but natural barriers make it difficult to access the Lodge walking along the coastline. And climbing up the bluffs to the Pebble Beach Golf Course is certainly frowned upon.

The Inn at Spanish Bay is easily approached by foot or bicycle and there is no entry fee required into Pebble Beach for walkers and cyclists. Spanish Bay Resort was developed in the late 1980s during the years my wife and I lived away from the Monterey Peninsula while going to college and working as teachers in small fishing villages in Maine and north coast California in Humboldt County.

Resort development in Pebble Beach is tough to get through environmental impact reviews. Just recently a project to expand The Lodge at Pebble Beach, the Inn at Spanish Bay and a new build hotel resort for Cypress Point have made headway.

The Inn at Spanish Bay has a public access walkway between the beach and the golf course leading to the hotel. This is one of my favorite walks on the Monterey Peninsula with the ability to be in nature, see whales and waves, and find myself at a comfortable place for a nice cold beer when I reach the bars and restaurants at Spanish Bay.

The access path is off Sunset Road about 200 yards west of Asilomar Road past the Fishwife Restaurant.

My wife recalls living in Pebble Beach as a child and playing in the sand dunes where the golf course is now. The path turns west to the beach where the wooden walkway begins.

Asilomar State Beach is an area for tidepooling and surfing and general lounging about on the beach. This is a protected marine reserve and it is illegal to remove natural items from the beach.

The boardwalk is subject to winter storms and each year the boards become a little more uneven to walk. A couple years back the stairway from Asilomar Beach leading to Spanish Bay was completely washed out. The stairs have not yet been rebuilt.

The beach grass has been restored to some extent. The entire area off the beach sand has restricted access to allow plant restoration along the dunes.

This is a place to watch big waves, however, the spindrift created by crashing surf on the beach makes big wave days not so nice for photography.

Giant kelp can grow to over 100 feet long. Asilomar Beach is a place where the natural beauty of the sea and sand and wild grasses gives way to a luxury golf resort built on top of the dunes.

The path along the shoreline leads to the beach parking lot at Spanish Bay off the 17-Mile Drive. The path heading inland goes to the hotel Inn at Spanish Bay.

The wooden public access path to the Inn at Spanish Bay gives way to the golf course cart path for a little bit of shared space between pedestrians and machines.

The Inn at Spanish Bay has an outdoor patio for ocean view drinking and food. Fine dining is available inside too.

Rates for the Inn at Spanish Bay are typically $500 to $800 per night. This hotel by all standards is a luxury class hotel. I have never stayed here and I haven’t even ever tried to get inside a room for photos. TripAdvisor has dozens of guest photos and the rooms look spacious and comfortably furnished.

You do not need to be a guest to enjoy the luxury of Spanish Bay. You can simply walk or bike into Pebble Beach for free and sit on the patio for drinks and appetizers in winter sunshine or summer fog.

Insider Tip: The car entrance fee to Pebble Beach counts as a credit for food and beverage purchases for The Inn at Spanish Bay and The Lodge at Pebble Beach. Just give your payment receipt to the waiter for credit on your bill.

Sunset at The Inn at Spanish Bay Pebble Beach as a bagpiper plays tunes carried in the wind.

Possibly an equally big mistake occurred this week when I was pitched a Hyatt Vacation Club timeshare presentation on Christmas Day after checking in at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn.  There was a call to our room about an hour after arrival and my wife was told that I had a coupon waiting for me in the lobby. There was no mention of Hyatt Vacation Club in the phone call, but I knew that is where the desk for HVC is located when Kelley told me where to go for the coupon.

I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge and I have been haunted by Christmas ghosts all week since my stay at the Carmel Highlands Inn. I wish it were all a dream and I could repeat Christmas Day at the Highlands Inn and turn down the Hyatt Vacation Club timeshare presentation offer that sullied the ending to what was otherwise a pleasant hotel stay. $150 was not worth over two hours of our limited family time together this Christmas week during my paid stay at the hotel. I deeply regret letting the HVC sales staff intrude on our family vacation getaway.

Carmel Highlands, California

Hyatt Stay Certificates for $249 nights at Hyatt Highlands Inn

There are some good tips in this post for getting a discount on the published rates at Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn and other high-priced Hyatt hotels and resorts.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn had a published rate of $399 per night for much of the Christmas week ($359.10 AAA rate). There is a $20 daily resort fee and 10.5% tax making the daily published rate about $420 to $460 all-in per night for the lowest rates.

A two-night Hyatt Stay Certificate Elite Level brought the rate down to $269 all-in per night. I published an article on Loyalty Traveler a few weeks ago on Hyatt Stay Certificates for big hotel rate savings.

I got that loyalty traveler buzz after I booked two nights for a total room cost of $269 per night compared to the otherwise lowest AAA rate at $417 per night with breakfast. The Hyatt Stay certificate saved nearly $300 on a two-night stay and I was able to handle the entire transaction online.

Hyatt Stay Certificates are paper certificates that must be mailed. I was concerned the certificate may not arrive in time when I ordered Monday morning, December 19 for a Sunday arrival on Christmas Day.

Hyatt Stay Certificates shipping cost:

• FedEx Express Saver shipping is $6 for a certificate order (not valid for Hawaii or Alaska).
• FedEx Two day = $14.
• FedEx overnight = $25.

I went with 2 day delivery on my Dec 19 Monday morning order and the FedEx delivery happened Tuesday night while I was out of the house. A signature was required so the envelope was not left on my doorstep, but FedEx returned Wednesday afternoon. My total Stay Certificate cost for two nights at Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn was $512.

Hyatt Stay Certificate

Unique Upgrade Opportunity

Even better was the message after making my reservation that I had a unique upgrade opportunity. E-upgrades are used by Hyatt as a means of upselling room reservations with the opportunity to get a room category upgrade for a small additional fee that generally results in a savings compared to the published rate for the room.

• Big Sur Suite = $39 extra per night.
• Ocean View Townhouse = $69 extra per night.

In my previous stays at Carmel Highlands Inn I have always received a complimentary upgrade to the Ocean View Townhouse. In 2010 I was upgraded to the Point Lobos Suite. I have never stayed in the Big Sur Suite and that is a corner room with loads of windows. I only selected the Big Sur Suite for my upgrade opportunity hoping for a chance to photograph the room.

Christmas Day at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn

On Christmas Day I checked in and received room 420 in the timeshare section of the hotel. This is the first time I have ever been given a room in the Hyatt Vacation Club section of the Highlands Inn. I was disappointed that I did not get the Big Sur Suite or an ocean view townhome.

The positive feature of the room is it probably has one of the best unobstructed ocean views of any room I have seen at Hyatt Highlands Inn. The balconies of the neighboring rooms are mostly not visible when standing out on the balcony of room 420.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands Room 420 sunset view.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands Room 420 daylight view.

The major negative of the room is it was the first room I’ve ever stayed in at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands without two bathrooms and the sitting room is basically shared with the bedroom. We had to move the dining table chair to partition off the bedroom from the sitting room.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn room 420.

This room is also the only room I have been in with just one TV. Once the partition between the sitting room and bedroom is closed there is no TV to view from the bed. The TV swivels and is viewable from the bed or the sitting room, but guests must choose which direction to face the TV and the bedroom partition must be open to see the TV from bed.

HVC sales teams took over Highlands Inn lobby in 2011.

Apparently I had not been to the Highlands Inn in 2011. My wife and I were surprised to see the lobby was reorganized to set up a series of timeshare presentation desks where there used to be large open space with beautiful black and white photographs.

2010 Carmel Highlands Inn lobby

Carmel Highlands Inn lobby 2010.

From the Mountains... To the Sea photo display.

2011 Carmel Highlands Inn lobby

2011 Carmel Highlands Inn features HVC sales desks on both walls of lobby.

Scenic nature photos replaced with a display of Hyatt Vacation Club properties.

There was a Christmas tree in the lobby when we arrived on Christmas Day. My family was surprised to see the tree being cut apart and removed on Monday morning. The lobby is usually a tranquil place to sit and relax and gaze out the wall-to-wall picture windows. On both mornings of our stay the seats by the windows were being used by the Hyatt Vacation Club sales force for meetings and the setting was anything but a tranquil place to relax while staying at the hotel.

Carmel Highlands Inn lobby seating by ocean view windows.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn lobby window seats.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn lobby south wall.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn north wall of lobby.

These are lovely seating arrangements, but the photos fail to show the HVC sales desks located off to the sides. From my observations during our stay there is a good chance there will be a timeshare sales pitch happening a few feet from these seats.

The largest pod of gray whales I have ever seen were spouting in probably ten or more places as I sat in the lobby gazing out the window. My sister tried to sit in the lobby and enjoy the scenery, but she went back to the room to get away from the three timeshare conversations happening simultaneously in three sets of window seats.

I had never even encountered the HVC sales staff in several previous stays at the Carmel Highlands Inn. In 2011 there was a major conversion of the hotel property with the former Hyatt Vacation Club offices being converted into the Fitness Room and the HVC offices being moved into the lobby. My sister wondered why they didn’t use one of the conference rooms on the floor below the lobby for the HVC desks? That is a good question.

Grand Piano in lobby.

The old Hyatt Vacation Club office was located in the timeshare section of the property and the small fitness room for the property was located beneath the lobby. The larger fitness room is now located in the former Hyatt Vacation Club office and is a great improvement, however and unfortunately, the HVC sales team has taken over the Hyatt Highlands Inn lobby.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn fitness room is former location of HVC office.

Upstairs bedroom in townhome unit.

Bedroom view from one-bedroom townhome unit.

Sitting room in HVC townhome.

Kitchen in HVC townhome.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands Pacific's Edge Restaurant.

Hyatt Highlands Inn is a beautiful place to stay. My past stays have always left me desiring more.

This Christmas week stay ended badly for me by participating in a Hyatt Vacation Club timeshare presentation. I sold out my family time for a $150 credit on the hotel bill.

Merry Christmas folks!

I scrooged you again for the Christmas holidays.

Related Loyalty Traveler posts:

In the Heart of the Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn (January 5, 2009)

Why visit Monterey and Hyatt Carmel Highlands in December? (Dec 6, 2011)

Hurricane Point is a high spot of the Big Sur Highway 1 coast with views of Bixby Bridge.

Bixby Bridge, Big Sur, Monterey County, California.

When I stood out at Hurricane Point there were three huge birds soaring south and I think they were condors since their size relative to seagulls was immense. My photo indicates to me there was a wing tag which is attached to the endangered condor birds of the Big Sur coast.

My photographic evidence is inconclusive. Regardless I think the sighting was an auspicious “three condors of the day” for my family’s Big Sur drive.

The first photo of Bixby Bridge is from April 2010. Here is my photo yesterday with a tiny black blip over the water horizon that I think was one of three California condors.

Big Sur coast Dec 27, 2011