Sunday & Monday, August 11 & 12, 2013 – Martinez, San Jose and Monterey, CA
Although we are a little disappointed to be in the final days of our trip, the time spent with family reinforces the point that there is no place like home. So we are ready – perhaps Elisa is more ready than I am, but I too am itching to get back home. After all, I’ve only been able to play golf 3 times since the trip started.
We arrived at Elisa’s brother’s house in Martinez on Saturday afternoon. We made a quick dinner at home of salad and a pizza. Elisa had some gluten free pasta. We had a late lunch that afternoon and Elisa and I weren’t very hungry. The following morning, we went down to check on Angelo’s rental home that he has been renovating. It is coming along bit by bit. The home was build about 70 years ago and was in need of some major repairs. It is now looking very nice. On Sunday afternoon, we drove down to see my Mom, Sister and her family and my niece Amber and my other niece Tavia and her family. We met at a nearby Chinese restaurant that served Dim Sum. We had a feast. We did it real Chinese style – which means that the meal was punctuated with a lot of conversation. But it is also safe to say that no one in our party of 10 went hungry. After that, we went over to my Sister and Brother-in-law’s house and talked a lot. We chatted about or travels in detail. My Sister Iris was quick to point out many interesting historical facts about the places we visited. I was very impressed at how knowledgable she was. She clearly had been doing a lot of reading as we made our trip across the country. (Maybe she should start a blog – or something.) As the day turned to evening, it was time for Elisa, Angelo and I to make the drive back up to Martinez. So we look forward to the next time we can all get back together again.
On Sunday morning, Elisa and I wend down into the small and quaint town of Martinez to visit a few of the many antique malls they have in this town. It is always interesting to walk around this town with Elisa. The town looks like something out of that old movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Although the town was founded in 1849 as a way station for gold miners making their way to California from all over the US, the town has the feel of something you might imagine from the 1930s or 1950s. That is because there was a great fire in 1903 that wiped out most of Main Street and all the buildings were rebuilt, mostly with brick in the ensuing decades. Since Elisa grew up here, as did her Father it is fun to hear her recount what was in each building. Many of the buildings still have the old neon signage hanging from the buildings; in spite of the fact that the signs often no longer correspond to the stores that are now in them. One example is the old Florsheim Shoe sigh that hangs above Bad Girl Antiques. To this day Main street is still dotted with banks, bakeries, eateries, and other businesses. Unfortunately, many of the larger buildings that housed establishments such as Hilson’s Department Store or a furniture store have fallen victim to the shopping malls and big-box stores. However, these sturdy old buildings are still being put to use, primarily as antique malls. There was one thing I saw today that was a bit disappointing – College Lane Bar – established in 1930 has closed and is under new management. It is now Whiskey Lane. I can remember Elisa’s dad talking about this local watering hole – making it sound more like a neighborhood pub than the dive bar it has become.
While we were strolling through the antique malls, Elisa was able to find many nice things at some really good prices. I couldn’t help but think it was a bit ironic that we had travelled across the country looking at antique malls for bargains, only to find some of the best bargains right here in our own California backyard. In fact, at one store I jokingly pointed out that there was even an antique accordion in one of the stores. Little did I know that Elisa would pick it up, begin playing it and then fall in love with the tone, the size and the playability of it. So, somehow or another I need to figure out where I’m going to fit an accordion into our traveling suitcase of a motorhome. I think Elisa is now up to 5 accordions – but whose counting?
After that, we went back up to Angelo’s house and had some roast chicken for lunch. Then it was time for us to hit the road. Originally, our plan was to head over to Half Moon Bay. I wanted to play the golf course over there. The call it the “Poor Man’s Pebble Beach” as almost every hole affords a view of the ocean and several holes are right along the shoreline. However, there was a change in plans. I was having trouble finding a place for us to stay overnight and the small town of Half Moon Bay didn’t offer Elisa much to do to pass the time while I was playing Golf.
The new plan was to head to Monterey Bay Area, which is where we are right now. We are staying in the small town of Marina, which is about 8 miles north of Monterey. I will be playing the Bayonet course, which is highly rated and at times has been on Golf Magazine’s top 100 list in the past. It didn’t make the list his year, but it is one of the top rated courses in California. So, I’m looking forward to that. After we got settled into our campground, we headed into Monterey to get some dinner out on the Fisherman’s Wharf. As we drove into town we noticed that there was a very large auto auction going on – Russo and Steele. This is a very high end auction. Apparently, it drew a lot of interest and money because we had a hard time finding a place to park. The first clue that something was going on should have been some of the cars we saw at our campground. First car we saw was a 1970 Lamborghini Espada that looked like it just came off the showroom floor. Then there was the new Bentley Mulsanne convertible that was parked across from us. These are the types of cars you typically see in an RV park.
Eventually we did find a place to park and we were able to walk over to Dominico’s on the Wharf. Our table was great – we had an excellent view of the Harbor. If you’ve been to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, I’m sure you would have seen how the sea lions and seals have taken over just about every floating object, including the docks and the boats. What they have done here in Monterey is they have built a large platform and tied it up next to Rick’s Fishing Tours. When Rick comes back into port, they clean the catch right there and they toss the chum into the water there. This keeps the sea lions and seals all in one location, jockeying for room on the platform. This keeps them off the other docks and also off the boats.
Dinner at Dominic’s was excellent. Since we are near the artichoke capital of the world, Castroville, CA, we shared a grilled artichoke . It was very good. I was served with the traditional mayonnaise but it also had a very nice pesto sauce to go with it. I ordered a wedge salad that was excellent. IMHO – the combination of crisp cold iceberg lettuce, blue cheese, bacon, onions and tomatoes is just about perfect. Our entrees were equally delicious. Elisa had a stuffed Salmon filet. It was stuffed with crab, bay shrimp and herbs. Delicious. I had the bacon wrapped scallops. The four scallops were huge. I am seldom full when I order the scallops. These went a long way toward filling me up. You see, both of us decided to share a small trio of deserts. It was a good compromise dish. I loved the chocolate mousse, Elisa loved the Tiramisu and we split the small cannoli. The only thing we are having a hard time wrapping our heads around is the fact that here it is the middle of August; typically the warmest time of the year for the region – and we are both freezing. The high temperature for the day here in Monterey was 64 degrees.
More later.
Photo 1 – The house that Elisa grew up in. It is now used as a rental by her brother.
Photo 2 thru 6 – A family feast.
Photo 7 – Our former home in Pleasanton, CA. Still a great little town. We were pleased to see that the drive through dairy and corner store is still there. We had to stop to get a soft serve cone.
Photo 8 – The beautiful countryside of Northern Calif as we head west on US 129 toward Watsonville. The rolling hills soon give way to some great farmland where they grow lots of fruit.
Photo 9 – We have a great dinner at Dominic’s on the Wharf – this is the entertaining view from our table.
Photo 10 – The perfect end to a perfect day.
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