California

Arrived in California on Monday, got our swank convertible and hit the highway! We drove down to Montery to spend the night. Pretty nice, big waves, but a little on the cool side. Saw fields full of artichokes which was cool. Tried grilled artichoke at supper, surprising good, much better than the ones in the jars, thats for sure.

 The next morning we hit up the Monterey Aquarium, so amazing! I really wanted to go, the Jellyfish on the website looked cool, and boy they did impress! It was like floating in space. Even dad agreed that it was one of the best aquariums he's been too. The were touching pools, we I got to touch starfish, sea cucumbers, purple urchins and rays. The rays were soft, the starfish were really grainy. Definitely not how I imagined them to feel. All spiny and bleh. There were otters, and they were super cute, I wanted to cuddle with them! The seahorses were weird. I'm still unsure what I think of seahorses. There were tons of different types too - tiny ones, thin ones, ones that looked like kelp, and big fat ones.
I'm so pleased that dad agreed to go there in the morning. The cannery area of Monterey was nice too, I would have enjoyed walking around there, but we were on a sched.

Highway 1 that follows the coast was closed because of a landslide so we had to drive in the interior. Not what I was expecting at all. It was all mountany. Varied between lush, and sparse trees.
We spent the rest of the day in the Paso Robles area. Very pretty, and over 250 local wineries - heaven or disaster? We went on a vineyard tour of Tablas Creek, up in the hills in the area. Learnt a lot about grapes and the geology of the area - limestone soils is great for Rhone grapes. We then tried seven of their wines, which were great. I hated to leave, it was so beautiful up there - sunny and hot too!
We went back down into the town to the various tasting rooms. We encountered a few people familiar with Yellowknife and Ice Road Truckers.
Honestly, who isnt in the States? I walk in, they ask where am I from, Canada, where in Canada? Northern Canada, by Alaska, have you seen the show Ice Road Truckers? YES!? That's my town. NO WAY! Amazing.
So anyways, we drank galons of wine down in the show rooms. It was you get a sampling of 6/7 glasses of wine for 5-10$, a fee which is waived if you buy a bottle.

Elephant seals sun bathing

This morning I stuggled at getting up, but we needed to get on the go... today we hoped to drive back up highway 1 to get to Carmel. Along the way we went to the Hearst Castle. This random mansion in perched on a hilltop overlooking the ocean. Spectacular view. This guy, Mr. Hearst built this castle by importing parts of castles/monestaries/churches from throughout Europe. A ceiling from here, a fireplace from there. Quite the grand, the pools were the neatest. I wish we could have gone swimming in them :(

We left the castle and drove a ways up, but the road was sill closed from the rockslide. But we did get to see a beach full of seals. We made our way back north to Carmel - Clint Eastwood used to be the mayor, random. We're here tonight, checking out Pebble Beach tomorrow and then heading into San Fran till Sunday.