We were able to find a place that could replace his strings in Monterey. (Thanks Kurt Heisig Music!) We dropped off his guitar and went to get something to eat in Cannery Row. We briefly thought of going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but the hubster hates zoos and aquariums. Once in a while, he will go to appease me, but since we had already been to the aquarium a few years back, it wasn't worth the appeasement for him. He's learned to pick his battles. (On a side note - while I love Monterey Bay Aquarium, my favorite is the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park).
We grabbed some more ice (couldn't get enough of that stuff), a new camp chair (to replace the one that biffed it), and other yummy stuff that makes camping worth it and headed back down Highway 1. Just outside of Carmel, we notice a few people with their cameras pointed to the ocean. We figured that the ocean itself couldn't elicit that much excitement. Sure enough, there was a pod of whales just off the coast. YAY! Bucket list item checked!
Next stop was Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. If you think that there are a lot of things named 'Pfeiffer' around here - you would be right. It was a little tricky for us newbies to get things straight but we got there in the end. That has to be one of the most gorgeous places I've been. Wow!
 |
| Kolton reading while overlooking the ocean. |
 |
| Love this picture...Aren't they cute? |
 |
| I have to say that I look reasonably decent for several days of camping |
If that wasn't enough loveliness, we went to watch the sunset at Sand Dollar Beach, just south of Kirk Creek. It was a peaceful beach, with hardly anyone there. We took our books and snacks and just read, played in the water and watched the surfers. The trail down to the beach was fine but with a lot of steps - 99, I think.
 |
| stairs down to Sand Dollar Beach |
There was one lone seal beached on the sand. I don't know enough about seals to know if he was alright or not. He was breathing - so at least he had that going for him. One of the surfers came over and petted him and didn't look too concerned, so I chose to think that he was just enjoying the sun.
\
We had read about the raccoons at Kirk Creek Campground but we hadn't had any problems. Until the third night, that is. We were sitting around the campfire, listening to Kolton play on his brand new strings, when we heard rustling in our food container. We hadn't put it away because we had just finished dinner. Thinking it was one of the squirrels that had been wandering around, we rushed over there to scare it away. Nope, No squirrel. One great big FAT raccoon. Obviously, our food container wasn't the only one he had been raiding. He grabbed a bag of Vege Straws and high tailed it to the poison oak. He was no dummy, he knew we wouldn't come into the poison oak to get him.
Note: poison oak was fairly rampant, but the campground had cleared it fairly well around the campsites. My kids are older, though. I would be a little worried if I had small kids.
 |
| poison oak |
He sat back and chowed down on our Vege Straws. If he could have, he would have given us the middle finger, as well. We put our remaining food back into the trailer, so he was out of luck for anything else. So, he, then, wandered over to our neighbors where he stole their entire bag of marshmellows. They had a huge Great Dane over there with them, but apparently, that was no deterrent. We watched as the raccoon streaked across our campsite with our neighbor screaming after him. The raccoons were pretty brazen. Once they figured out that we had food hidden somewhere, they (three of them) just kept wandering around. It unnerved us (especially Kolton, who was sleeping in a tent) but they didn't try anything else for the rest of the night. Except chew the top of our water container. All those snacks gave them the thirst, I guess.
 |
| Amazing, right? Perfection! |
