Friday 6th October
Today we drove back over the Lucia Mountains on Naciemto Rd and then northwards to Carmel Valley. As well as the ubiquitus ground squirrels (or maybe chipmunks?) we saw a coyote crossing our road. Once in the Salinas Valley, we passed miles upon miles of vines and acres of lettuce fields before the terrain changed again to rolling hills covered with sundried yellow grass and then wooded areas with windy roads. It was also the first time I have seen artichokes growing - large fields of them. Carmel Valley is a pleasant looking village/town and we are staying at the far end in motel type accommodation. As we arrived a little early we decided to walk around the town which had a well stocked grocery store and lots of wine tasting places and restaurants. We stoped at the Corkscrew Cafe for an iced tea and a small beet salad on quinoa with goats cheese to keep us going until dinner! Having checked in, we sampled the swimming pool, and for dinner walked back to the Corkscrew Cafe for a pizza. I thought it might get a bit cold, sitting outside, but they had some heaters so it was very pleasant and the food was good too.
View from Lucia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Monday 9th October Today we did a two to three mile walk down and through Golden Gate Park.to the Academy of Sciences building where we planned to pick up the hop on hop off bus. It was interesting to see the dismantling of the structures in the park that had been erected for a massive Blue Grass Festival last weekend. We waited half an hour with a crowd of other tourists only for someone to discover that they weren't picking up there but five minutes away on one of the main roads, so we all walked there en masse and then waited again. We had to wait for the second bus or we wouldn't have had seats but we then drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and back again into the city. We hopped off at Union Square where we went to Macy's that has a post office, so as to post the key back to Lucia. Unfortunately we had forgotten it was a public hliday (Columbus Day) so it was closed. We did have lunch there though - enchilladas - which were okay. We then hopped back on the bus to rep...
Read more
Saturday 21st October Today was a beautiful but cool, sunny day and I woke feeling extremely lacking in energy. So, after breakfast (I had granola, yoghurt and fruit which was nice but rather sweeter than I am used to, so Iain used the honey on his toast) we drove 2.5 miles up a very narrow winding road to Panoramic Point. The Point was only quarter of a mile from the parking place and we enjoyed spectacular views of the mountains, before walking a mile along another trail along the ridge, through large rocks and pines with lovely views on the other side as well. Iain drove back down and we only encountered three other cars coming up, luckily at places where we didn't have to reverse uphill! We parked back at John Muir Lodge and set out along the Sunset trail which starts nearby. The path soon wandered away from the road and we found ourselves walking along a really pretty trail that wound gently downwards through rocks and pines, with no sign of anyone else. We stopped at a rea...
Read more