Sharon and I decided we needed a break from all that is happening around us and booked a weekend at a nice hotel in Monterrey. Sharon got us a suite at the Claremont, a nice room with a balcony and with a nice ocean view. I couldn't wait to get there.
The plan was to leave around 2 pm on Friday, but of course things never work out the way they should. The night before our trip the washer decided to break in the way washers usually break, by overflowing and making our upstairs carpet very, very wet. This meant I spent most of the evening using towels to try and mop up as much water as I could, not very successfully. Friday I returned home from work with a brand new carpet steam cleaner and used it to soak up the water. It worked beautifully and after a couple of hours of pushing it around I was able to downgrade the carpet's state from "swamp" to "damp."
So by 3:30 we were on the road and after an uneventful trip arrived at our hotel. The front desk person showed us to a very nice suite, including HDTVs in the living room and bedroom, a fireplace and a plush otter on our bed. For a change, the HDTV actually came with HD programming something I had not experienced before in the hotel room. And the view? Well, the picture below shows the view from our room:
And, for the sake of symmetry, this is a picture of our room from the view (our room was the sunny corner on the top floor):
We started our evening by sitting in the patio and enjoying our drinks: a virgin Mary for Sharon and a vodka martini for me. It was a little nippy, but they had outdoor heaters and a fire pit, and we felt downright cozy. Hunger got the best of us eventually and we headed down Cannery Row looking for a place to eat. Ended up at a pleasant family restaurant where I had the jambalaya and Sharon had the stuffed mushrooms.
Saturday we took advantage of the good weather and went down to Carmel to wander around the downtown area. Melissa, our faithful GPS, got us there safely and we spent some time window shopping and ended up doing our favorite activity, hanging out at a coffee shop. Sharon enjoyed a nice cup of coffee and I had what was possibly the worst iced tea ever made.
After that it was time for the obligatory scenic 17-mile drive. I was surprised that I actually had to pay almost ten bucks for the privilege, but did it anyway and enjoyed the experience. We took the inner route, but eventually detoured towards the coast and stopped at Bird Rock to enjoy the waves breaking against the shore. Bird Rock, by the way, has its name because that little rock has dozens of sea lions on it. At least that was the case when we were there.
Then it was back to the hotel so Sharon could get some rest. As for me, I decided to wander around Cannery Row to see what the stores had to offer. The fish and otter-themed souvenirs, the John Steinbeck memorabilia I can understand; the Elvis stuff, not as much.
The evening was not that good. It was raining and Sharon was not feeling well, so I had dinner by myself at the hotel restaurant. The musician was Brazilian, the waiters attentive and the food undercooked. The merlot I had with dinner was very nice, though.
Sunday was aquarium day. Sharon and I like the aquarium and don't go there often enough. The last time we were there it was for sea horses, this time it was flamingos. It was a small exhibit, intended to get us thinking about global warming (I dislike the name "climate change", seems like we are not willing to face the problem straight on), but enjoyable all the same. And I did get to see them feed the penguins and sharks, the otters, the octopuses and several of my old friends. Sharon is right: if we didn't live so far away it would have been very nice to volunteer there.
Then it was time to go back home. I gambled on 101 being a better choice and lost: a traffic accident near Gilroy made it take 30 minutes for us to cover 4 miles. But then again, I was not in a hurry to get home as I knew that there was a damp carpet waiting for me. Luckily, it turned out that the weekend had taken care of the rest of the carpet drying and I did not see any obvious water damage, so I declared operation carpet-cleaning a success.
And thus ended the weekend.
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