Monterey and Santa Cruz

let's see, what did i do in monterey...checked out monterey all day saturday, walked down cannery row, walked down the coast guard wharf, took a bunch of pics of the sea lions gathered on the rock outcropping at the end of the wharf, walked down fisherman's wharf, as well as the municipal wharf...checked out some museums downtown, including the Custom House, the Pacific House, and the Maritime History Museum...also took a 3-hour Whalewatching cruise! the boat took us about 20-25 miles into Monterey Bay, ended up seeing about 3-4 different pods of whales, about 15-20 humpback whales total! some of them came up pretty close to the boat as well...didn't see any other aquatic mammals, but the whales alone were worth it...got a bunch of great pics, again, i'll do my damndest to post these pics ASAP, but can't make any promises...might end up having to wait until i get back to maryland...after the whalewatching trip, did some barhopping for a couple hours, met some cool locals, watched some football and baseball, all in all a good time...saw both the LSU and Cal losses, couldn't believe either one!

sunday, i had been planning on trying to do some kayaking in Monterey Bay, but once i got up sunday morning, decided to skip that instead and hung out in a sports bar in Monterey close to my hotel, spent about 12 hours there, watched the morning NFL games, the afternoon NFL games, the sunday night NFL game, and game 3 of the NLCS...didn't get into Santa Cruz until about 11PM last night...grabbed a grilled cheese sandwich at a local vegetarian hippie-dippie diner and went off to sleep...one nice thing is that, for once, i'm actually in a real hotel-type place...this is the first time since i left maryland that i've had my own bedroom AND my own bathroom!

wandered around Santa Cruz today and did some exploring...walked out to Municipal Wharf this morning, not much to see but did get some good pics of the city from the wharf as well as the sea lions chilling out on the pilings beneath the wharf...then drove up to Lighthouse Beach State Park/Steamers Point/the Surfing Museum/Natural Bridges State Park, hung out and enjoyed the scenery, took some good pics, etc. etc...then came back into town, wandered up and down Pacific Ave., the main commercial drag in town, checking out the various shops/restaurants/bars/etc...not a bad place but not a ton of things to do...one thing i did find annoying is the huge number of bums/vagrants/burnt-out ex-hippies or hippie-wannabes out here...i'm as liberal as the next guy but goddamn, these guys were even getting on my nerves! found a great local Irish pub right off of Pacific, watched some baseball, hung out with some Santa Cruz locals, etc...had thought of taking surfing lessons while i was out here (lots of surfing lessons available in town), but it's been gray/overcast/drizzling/chilly all day...plus, when we were on the whalewatching boat in monterey on saturday, i saw an absolute TON of jellyfish in the water, which kind of freaked me out...so decided to sightsee instead...will have to save the surfing lessons until i come back here during the summertime, when the weather/water are warmer!

so i guess that wasn't the most exciting update...that's not surprising since the last couple of days were fun and entertaining, but not crazy exciting...anyways, things should pick up over the next couple of days as i'll be heading up San Francisco tomorrow and staying there through friday...god help me, i hope i can find some way to get the absolutely ridiculous number of pictures i've taken in the last week and a half online! anyways, stay tuned...