We ended up spending two nights in Marina with our Chinese friend, giving us the opportunity to see Monterey at a leisurely pace. We spent all day on the Monterey Peninsula cruising through Pacific Grove, Monterey, and Carmel-by the-Sea. We had heard that one of the highlights was to do the 17-mile drive through Pebble Beach. We thought it would be cool to do it on the motorcycle so we headed over…wait, what? Motorcycles are forbidden on the 17-mile drive! Why? The noise answered the guard on duty at the entrance. I told him that we weren’t loud and he could hear it himself. Nonetheless, he wouldn’t let us go. Ah, screw them anyway! But damn you Harely and crotch rocket riders for being so loud!
Instead we spent the day at the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium. The otters were off display because they were working on their enclosure. Good thing you could see them floating and cracking open their mussels out in the bay – way better than behind glass anyway! The large main tank they have is spectacular and worth the visit. For Linner (our term for a meal between lunch and dinner) we decided to go to the pier despite the fact that we knew it was going to be full of tourons (another made up word we use to describe aimless tourists a combo of tourist and moron) – after all we are tourons ourselves. Surprisingly we found a great place where we could watch the jellyfish while we ate a very good seafood entree.
It was good to be off the motorcycle for the day and stretch your legs, stay in one place for more than 2 hours and take it all in.
