April 20 - United States: Pleasanton, CA

We both went for runs this morning while we waited for the very overcast clouds to burn off.  Unfortunately, the clouds never left, but the run was nice.  We took a nearby bike path up and down some beautiful hills and gorgeous scenery.  Tough workout, but great vistas.

After showering and packing up the tent, we ate bagels and then drove to Carmel to the famous 17 Mile Drive.

17 Mile Drive

How gorgeous!  It cost $8 to enter the drive, but we could get a discount if we played a round of golf at Pebble Beach.  Of course a round of golf on the Pebble Beach Links costs $400 so I have to think that if we could afford that, then the $8 refund really wouldn't matter.

Despite the very cloudy and cold day, we really enjoyed the drive.  And what we intended to be a one-hour outing didn't end until three hours later.  We stopped for heaps of pictures and took our time meandering around.  Around 12:30 we parked on the beach for a very windy lunch of turkey and cheese on sourdough, which we'd bought at a local grocery store.

A Very Cloudy Day on the Beach

We also drove through some of the side streets to look at houses.  There was one on the market, and the flyer lists it as having 4500 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half-baths, and all for the bargain price of $3.9mil.  Pocket change, really.  There's a lot of new construction on 17 Mile Drive, which surprised me as I'd assumed all the land had been bought and built up years ago.  But it looks like money can get you anything here in Carmel.  Interestingly enough, there were also some real shacks within the drive.  Although these houses are sitting on a veritable gold mine of real estate, some of the houses have overgrown weeds, junked-up yards, and cars on blocks.  Interesting contrast to something like this:

Someone's Starter Home?

We spent some time at "Bird Rock", which is about halfway along the drive.  There were heaps of Cormorant birds on the rock, which we found interesting because we remembered our Cormorant Fishing Outing in China.  Thankfully, these California birds weren't perched on fishermen's boats with strings around their necks.  They were just hanging out on Bird Rock.

Bird Rock

There was also a group of sea lions playing in the water just to the right of Bird Rock.  At first, we thought it was a bed of kelp.  But the binoculars revealed about 50 sea lions swimming about.

We also stopped by the Pebble Beach Resort and watched some guys tee off on the first tee.  $400 for a round of golf.  Damn.  As I'm not yet into the golf thing, I can't quite relate.  

Pleasanton, CA

Around 3:00, we hit the road to go to Pleasanton in the East Bay of San Francisco.  Jon's Aunt Char (his father's sister) lives here, and offered for us to stay.  It didn't take us long at all to get there, so we spent some time driving around Pleasanton and looking for a place to have my hair cut.  I've decided to grow it out, but in the meantime something needs to be done with the back.  We found an inexpensive place to trim the back of my hair, leaving the bangs to grow out.  Of course, this means that they're still hanging in my eyes but this is all part of the growing-out pain.

Char and her husband Steve live in a lovely little townhouse just near "Main Street" in Pleasanton.  Char told us that it was this quaint little Main Street that made them decide to live here.  We hung out and chatted with Char for quite a while.  Then I took a shower to get the little hairs off my neck, and we went to dinner.

Dinner was at a place called "Blue Aqua" or something like that.  We met Steve for dinner and got a seat on the porch area.  Despite the very chilly weather, the restaurant had placed large heaters around the patio.  Still, we wondered whether we should sit outside.  But the host (who really was quite charming) said in his Mexican accent, "The heaters are warm!  You see these people?  They no crazy.  They warm!"  So we laughed and let him lead us to our table.  The food was very, very good and temporarily sated our never-ending desire for Mexican Food.  Jon figures that since we went for so long without our favorite Mexican food, our bodies are trying to compensate now.