Dennis and I celebrated our 4th year of marriage with our annual trip to Carmel, by the sea. We love that place. And as luck would have (a.k.a. God) we managed to be there the same weekend as their Annual Art Festival and their Surfing Competition. We stayed at the same hotel (Best Western, Carmel - by the sea). This old fashioned hotel, motel is awesome! Each night was only $89.99 a night, thank you AAA.
We left for Carmel Friday night, and not a moment too soon...we escaped the horrible first few days of the 100 degree weather. We arrived into Carmel around 9:30 and checked into our room. We freshened up and then headed to our favorite bar for drinks.
Saturday, we woke up early and walked around Carmel. We did some shopping at the usual haunts: first the coffee shop to aid in our waking up, our favorite Tee Shirt store, Diggity Dog and of course the yarn store. My husband is so good to me. After jaunting through the art fair, we got our car and then headed into Monterrey. We went to the wharf for our favorite clam chowder in a bread bowl. So good! Then we headed on down to Cannery Row. Did some walking around there. Thought about going to the aquarium, then thought better of it when we saw the hordes of people. So, we headed on down to Pacific Grove. Walked around the shops there. Then we headed back and had a super tasty dinner at A.W. Shucks (our favorite bar/restaurant) in Carmel. Burgers and Margaritas. So tasty and really affordable! After dinner, Dennis and I walked down to the beach and just wandered around down there. The weather was so perfect! Then we headed back up the hill and stopped off at A.W. Shucks for some more Margaritas. It was pretty cool, we made friends with the owners and the bar tender. Of course it helps to be a paying customer, but we truly love that place and as long as we are in Carmel, we will eat and drink there.
Ok, so onto Sunday: We got up early and packed up our stuff. We checked out of fave place to stay and headed into Monterrey. We got coffee and wandered down the aquarium. There were not that many people so, we finished our coffee and headed in. Here's an important tip to all of you AAA members buy your tickets at a AAA office for the discount. They do not take AAA at the aquarium. Other wise it's $29.99 a person! But it was worth it. They added several new features to it. Pretty freakin cool! We went to the sea horse exhibit. That was really fascinating! I would recommend the aquarium. Pretty cool. We saw river otters, birdies, lots of fish, touched some sea animals, saw some octopus' and lots of sea horses. Last stop was the sea otters. We went to one side of the upstairs viewing and I totally smashed my face into the glass. It was so funny. It didn't hurt, but it made a pretty loud gong sound. That was a good laugh. After the aquarium, we headed off to the Fish Hopper for a big lunch for our anniversary. Afterwards we headed on home. With no a/c the ride home was pretty hot! 106 degrees on the freeway! Thankfully we made good time getting home.
It was a really wonderful trip. I am so sad to be back in the humidity and heat. But I have Daisy back and that makes me happy. We are both looking forward to going back to Carmel.
That's all for now :) Write later...
