On a windy, fog-swept curve of Highway 1 on Friday morning, we passed a sign that said something about elephant seals and the possibility of viewing them, and I shouted for the first of many times over the course of the weekend, "Holy shit! Pull over!" Pants and I spent the next half hour standing like little kids on the slats of a wooden boardwalk fence and gawking at a beach full of elephant seals. Rather, spaced out clots of elephant seals with one massive, flabby nosed male per group, presiding noisily over a harem of bored, sleepy females. Less fortunate males bumped chests in the surf and angled stubby yellow teeth at each other's necks, or just hollered mournfully into the waves. Little ground squirrels skittered in the sand around the sleeping females and yellow flowers bobbed in the breeze. Off to the north, the fires of Big Sur burned apace and would block our trek to the state beach with the 80-foot waterfall and the sea caves, but we didn't know that for sure yet and instead just enjoyed scrolling along the coast under a thin gray scrim of boiling fog.
We checked into our hotel, where the Indian proprietor made a series of heavily accented nudge-nudge wink-wink comments about us enjoying our honeymoon, and we quickly figured out that something had been lost in translation when my mom was making her long-distance bail out on our reservation, but we did get a couple of free synthetic logs for the room's little fireplace out of it. That night, delicious fried pub food and fireworks and a late night viewing of Jaws on HBO in advance of our kayak trip at Monterey Bay Kayaks.
The next morning we missed our wake-up call and woke in a panic, throwing on clothes and grabbing wallets, Pants inhaling a free continental breakfast muffin while I scrolled through recent calls on my phone trying to find the number for the kayak tour place. We got there, miraculously, in plenty of time, but I made my sleepy "we're on our way!" call anyway. The tour was easily the best thing that's happened to us in years. Pants and I found ourselves remarkably adept at maneuvering a two-person kayak except for several moments when one or both of us got so excited at seeing an otter or a harbor up close that we nearly whacked each other with the paddles or tipped the boat trying to scootch around in our seats to alert the other.
One thing I learned from our guide about otters that I didn't know is that they basically live in a skin bag that's only attached at the face and the feet. In other words, if an otter has an itch on its back, it can tug its fur around to the front and scratch it. We saw quite a few engaged in this task and it was even more creepily human and cloyingly cute than when they smash clams against rocks on their chests. Also, they've figured out how to make an armpit pouch out of loose skin in which to store their favorite clam-bashing rock or even extra clams they're too sleepy to eat, and learning this detail nearly made me yank out my kayak skirt and tip into the water to try and join them. I could wrap my foot in a twist of kelp and float on my back napping all day. I think my otter resume is really impressive.
Also on the tour, the guide scooped up a little slug-like thing called a nudibranch, which I've found is a term that describes any number of crazy looking sea slugs, but out of the water this one looked like something you'd cough up after a long night in a smoky club. In the water, though, it suddenly bloomed into a tiny yellow forest of spiny tentacles and had an electric blue racing stripe along its sides. I was enchanted and spent the next 20 minutes paddling with my face hanging inches from the water looking for more of them and trying out different memory devices to remember the slug's name. (I finally came up with this one: A naked person bearing a pine bough = nudey branch. Done.)
Also spotted and mentally tagged on our wildlife tour: harbor seals in all different colors (apparently they've given up camouflage since their last major predator, the grizzly bear, got chased off by encroaching highways and strip malls and are developing ever more flamboyant coats), sea lions, cormorants (black diving ducks who can reach alarming depths in their search for crabs, and who then come topside to paint coastal rocks white with their poo), brown pelicans... wait, I have to stop in the list to talk about the pelicans because there's no way it'll fit into a parenthetical aside. The brown pelican is a diving bird, but this appears to be a stubborn lifestyle choice rather than a function for which nature has designed them. A whole row of them sat on the bank preening and making leathery, dinosaur noises as our guide continued in his thick Australian accent to tell me one of the coolest bits of animal trivia I've ever heard. In order not to break bones in their poorly built faces and heads, pelicans learn through their rough adolescence to close one eye while diving to offset the pressure of the impact on their skulls. Over time, the eye left open goes blind, and the pelican has to switch. Younger ones who are slow on the uptake often show evidence of many facial breaks before they finally catch on to the eye trick, and ancient pelicans are often completely blind.
I listened to all of this with Pants in the back of the kayak quietly saying Al Pacino's great drunk-ass line from Scarface, "Fly, pelican!" even though he's sitting in his bubble bath watching flamingos on TV. It nearly made me snort laughing.
The tour was fabulous, and later when we made it to the Monterey Aquarium, the throngs of dazed looking people using their mega-strollers like cattle guards and leaving the flash on in their photos didn't even make me hyperventilate, which is new. We'd already seen the animals we really wanted to see, only out in the water next to us. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to go back to the Aquarium and really take my time through the jellyfish exhibit, but I might just wait for the next flu pandemic or Super Bowl to do it.
Next up was wine tasting at a place with incredible harbor views, but Pants and I are classless and refuse to accept that you would pay to spit out alcohol. We got goofy and pointed loudly at dolphins leaping in the harbor, but everyone else managed to miss them and the bartender started pouring smaller samples. We left to wander around along the coast to a place called Lover's Point where Pants suddenly got anti-Hallmark and refused to climb out on the rocks with me for shmoopy photos. I went anyway and took pictures of the fat yellow starfish clinging to the bottom of a rock near the surf's edge. I wanted to climb around more, but after surprising my second couple in a rather advanced embrace, I scuttled back ashore, and Pants and I continued on to look at a lighthouse on Point Pinos, which quickly morphed into Point Penis jokes. Dinner that night was at a steakhouse; sea life suddenly looked way too friendly and familiar.
The Old Monterey Cafe on Alvarado Street is the place to go for breakfast. I had a spinach, avocado, and sun-dried tomato omelette and Pants had eggs Benedict with the eggs poached open in boiling water the old-fashioned way so that they had white comet tails. Like the ridiculous gluttons we are, we also split cinnamon raisin pecan pancakes bigger than both of our faces. Every flavor was bright and distinct and perfect, but part of that may have been the cool harbor breeze coming in through their front window. If you ever get the chance to eat breakfast with little wisps of fog coming in by your feet, do it.
On our way home, we did the famous 17 Mile Drive through Pebble Beach, but the experience was marred by our own shouts of "Assholes! How can these people live here all the time? I bet they get bored with massive views of the Pacific and seals in their back yards."
Back out on HWY 68 heading to Salinas it was Pants's turn to insist suddenly on pulling over, and this time it was for the Laguna Seca Raceway, which I'd never heard of. We climbed a 16% grade in my little grumbling little Honda and popped out over an incredible winding race track carved into the golden hills that hunch over Monterey and mark the dividing line between coastal fog and blazing bright California sun. There's apparently a summer camp for grown men here called the Skip Barber Racing School where they reach in and yank out the 11-year-old boy buried inside and teach him how to be a race car driver. Pants and I stood at one of the hillside campgrounds directly overhanging the track and watched these lucky men zip backwards in time to before the belly fat and the gray hair. I was about to make some snarky comment about this, but then I caught sight of Pants clinging to the chain link fence with both hands, wide-eyed and baring his teeth in that way that says, "MUST. DO. THIS." Maybe once he's got his own little spare tire and our phantom children are out of college.
The rest of the drive home was a windy race through the coastal mountain range on 198 that we'd skimmed south of on the way to Monterey. Laguna Seca was still beating in his veins because Pants chirped the tires a few times until I reminded him mountain lions would probably find our bodies first if we launched into the canyon. Another two hours and then suddenly, it happened: the road slammed down flat and refused to curve or rise even a little and the thick, stinky wool sweater of air pollution drew itself tightly over us. Back in the Central Valley. 106 degrees. Crops and right angles and monster pick-ups as far as the eye can see.
But we soon recovered Abby from the "dog jail" (her term), and surprised Linus that we had neither died not abandoned him, and soon we were covered again in a light haze of sweat and dog lick and pet fur, and after such a great vacation, even that felt OK. Since then, Pants has been in the best mood I've seen him in for a long, long time. He makes up more songs and yesterday I came in from the run from hell to see him making me dinner and cuing up newly pirated music for me on the iPod. A little escape together made all the difference in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment