Day 11 - Another Travel Day

Today we headed towards San Diego.  We are staying at the Hampton Inn in Kearney Mesa.  We saw some pretty cool cars along the way.  We made a pit stop at Huntington Beach Pier.  On one side of the Pier they had people surfing and playing volleyball on land.  On the other side of the Pier they had Jetski races set up. I was really hoping to see some starfish on the pier but this year we did not see any.  I checked all the fishermen to see their catches.  A lot of them were catching small fish.  One guy had caught a stingray.  It managed to get away just when they raised him up towards the top of the Pier.  We even saw a seal from the Pier.  It was all exciting to see.  For dinner we went to Studio Diner.  We are now preparing for our golf game tomorrow at Torrey Pines.  Should be a lot of fun.

Day 10 - Travel Day

A little behind in blogging as the last 2 days have been travel days.  We first travelled to Ventura Beach where we stayed at a Hampton Hotel in Agoura Hills.  I tried to read some of my book but kept falling a sleep each time I tried to read a page.  Grace worked on her pictures.  We made it safe and sound at around 3:00 pm.  We had supper at Tavern 101 Grill and Tap House.  They had 3 men setting up for a live band.  We wondered what we were in for but they were actually pretty good.  Was fun to listen to.  We returned home and just relaxed as our week had been really busy.  I watched Spider-Man 3 as I had not seen this before.

The mountains look pretty green here.

Day 9 - Birthday Gift

Today was an amazing day.  Lawrence and I received for our birthdays some Whale Watching tickets to go with Ralph and Grace.  We were up early for breakfast again and headed to Moss Landing which is just about 20 minutes up the road from us.  We had to meet on the Pier by 9:40 am for the Blue Ocean Whale Watch.  I guess we were a little early but we were eagerly anticipating todays adventure.  This was a small organization but they were very friendly and had kept in touch with Grace and Ralph as to what was going on.  We were very lucky we had not booked for the day before because it was cancelled on that day due to rough weather conditions.   Before loading on the boat we were given some White Flower Essential Oil to help with motion sickness.  There were probably approximately 40 people on the boat.  We headed out and were barely in the main waters and we spotted our first whale.  He was a lone whale and stayed underwater for a fairly long time so it was a little difficult to take pictures of him.  We decided to move and see what else we could find.  As we were driving we saw some jelly fish.  We drove to an area where there was a lot of boats.  Some of the boats were Salmon fishermen.  We saw a few humpback whales here and there and got a few pictures.  The highlight was seeing a pod of Killer Whales.  They had a few babies with them and they had caught a sea lion and were teaching the babies how to hunt and kill it.  While watching these Killer Whales we also had an Albatross flying around.  The bird knew it was feeding time for the whales.  Was quite awesome to see.  I was surprised by how quickly 4 hours went by.  It was sad when we had to go back.  After we got back to the docks we checked out a fresh vegetable stand and went to the beach to eat the lunch we packed.  We were all pretty pumped with how successful the day was.  We headed back home and spent a while reviewing our pictures.  I must admit I had no idea how long it would take to write my blog as we had so many choices.  It would have to wait until after dinner.  For dinner we went to Jack's.  The food was tasty but the seats left you sitting in the middle of a hotel.  A little different....
We were going to try and take a sunset picture one more time but we took a little too long with dinner and just caught the tail end.  What a wonderful day.

The Albatross

Day 8 - Golfing at Pacific Grove Golf Links and Driving 17 Mile Drive

Today we got up early, went for breakfast and headed off to Pacific Grove Golf Links.  We bought a bucket of balls to loosen up and try our shots out as we have not golfed this year yet.  This course is known as the Poor Man's Pebble Beach course.  It is a really nice course laid out along the water on the second nine.  We had a ball.  Lost 2 balls but found 2 as well so ended up even.  We enjoyed some lunch at the course and then went to take a ride along the 17 Mile Drive.  Again we were amazed by the waves coming in along the coastline.  We have not seen waves like this ever.  The pictures don't quite capture the views you see.  Well maybe ours don't but Grace and Ralph's do.  We stopped and took some pictures of the Lone Cypress Tree and after that we had a walk along Pebble Beach Golf course.  We were hoping to take some sunset pictures and Ralph and Grace wanted to retake some Cypress Tree pictures when the sun was going down as that changed the lighting in the pictures as well.  It was amazing the difference.  We managed to get a few sunset shots and then went for some Thai food and headed home.  I think we will sleep good tonight.  We were all pretty exhausted when we got home.  Our days have been full.

Our Morning Breakfast Place

There were lots of deer on the course

Our first sunset

Day 7 - Hike at Henry Cowell State Reserve and Off to Pacific Grove

We woke up this morning and packed our bags.  We checked with the front desk if we could stay a little longer as we heard about a hike at Henry Cowell State Park that we wanted to check out.  I must admit I was a little concerned about doing this hike as I am not in very good shape to do this.  With Lawrence's help I managed to do the whole hike.  There was a few steep portions that scared me, but I did get through it.  The hike was called the Garden of Eden.  We were very disappointed when we got to the bottom because it did not have the displays that people had talked about.  It had a swimming hole that it was famous for but not much to look at.  You could see that some guys had built some shelters in the trees.  All was not lost though as near the end of the hike we saw a Banana slug that we heard about the first time we went to Henry Cowell's.  We also made a pit stop to see a historic landmark.  It was Felton covered bridge, the tallest covered bridge in the country.  This was built in 1892.  We headed back to the hotel and loaded the car, checked out and headed towards Pacific Grove.  Our place is very close to the golf course which we plan on playing tomorrow.  We are very close to the water which is really nice.  We explored a little around Cannery Row and had dinner at Cannery Row Brewing Company.  Afterwards we were going to try and take a sunset picture but it turned out to be very windy and overcast.  Instead we took some more wave pictures which were huge.  Today has flown by.