Friday, February 15 was a day around Monterey Bay to rival weather wise the best days of summer. The day tied the record high temperature at 77 degrees in Moss Landing near the center of Monterey Bay on the central coast of California. That was the official temperature and matched a record from 1977.

I drove 20 miles from Monterey to check out the wildlife in the harbor at Moss Landing. This is truly becoming my go to place for getting close to sea life. Friday morning I read in the San Jose Mercury News about surfers the day before seeing a Great White Shark attack a sea lion about 100 yards offshore in Moss Landing. Great white shark attacks sea lion near Moss Landing surfers (San Jose Mercury Feb 15, 2013). Read More…

Saturday was one of those January days around the Monterey Bay when the 74 degree air temperature and clear skies rival the best days in summer here on the Central Coast of California. An errand took me around Monterey Bay 45 miles on Highway 1 to Santa Cruz yesterday.

Highway 1 runs along the coastline, never more than a few miles from the sea. Midway around Monterey Bay the road travels through Moss Landing, my vote for the quintessential fishing village along the 400 miles of coastline between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Read More…

Over the weekend I saw a sea otter mom and her pup hanging out by Monterey Wharf #2.

Saturday was a late-spring day in Monterey with the weather temperature in the 60s and the fog evaporated by noon, providing refreshing marine air for thousands of visitors to the seashore on a day when the heat had risen to 90s in Silicon Valley. Weekend days like these bring thousands of cars to the Monterey Peninsula; most just stay for the day.

By 6pm tourists tend to be either at the restaurants or getting ready to go to restaurants, if they can afford to stay in Monterey and eat. I think the majority of visitors crowd the roads from Pebble Beach and Carmel and Pacific Grove onto the highways out of Monterey and then onto the freeways for the drive back to their valley homes inland from the seaside of Central Coast California.

Even in tourist season Monterey tends to quiet down quickly in the evening. Read More…

Carmel on my mind.  Yesterday I finished The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Hard travelin’ times in California for those folks. The book is truly a stunning experience. Getting myself down to the sea seemed a good recovery strategy from living with the Joads this past week.

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. Read More…

I like to talk up the place I live – the Monterey Peninsula of Central Coast California. This is another one of my posts that has nothing to do with hotels. This post does share some of the great attractions of coming to the Monterey area.

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. Read More…