The Meaning of Vast

Many.

Unending.

Too far to see.

Too much to imagine.

Today we drove from Monterey to Desert Hot Springs, up over the plateau (avoiding L.A.), and into the desert. The heat was huge. The wind unrelenting. The sky forever. The hills were slow and creeping so that we almost didn't notice we were suddenly many many miles above sea-level. California is vast.

Vast: The number of almond orchards we passed. The number of trees of one species, in rows stretching further than our eyes could see. Endless: Propagation, irrigation, devastation.

Vast: The number of bees imported into California's almond orchards with one purpose; one use; one reason to live. Endless: our using them.

Vast: The sunny yellow dry dirt. The orchards. The hills. Endless: The sky. How many almonds are in the back of that truck? How many do we need to sustain our appetite?

Vast: Promise of money in the ground. Endless: Our thirst for it.

Vast: White blur of windmills. Quantity needed to rival oil. Endless: Proliferation.

Vast: Land covered with Joshua Trees. Endless: Going. Highway and humans speeding past them, our goal more important than stopping to look at those trees propped by Dali-esque crutches. The Antelope Highway runs through a vast land of wildlife sanctuary, preserving the finite for now. But the future and greed is endless.

The Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa

Wow. This was possibly the most amazingly high-class place we've ever been.

When I looked for accommodation donations, I asked everybody. And of course I had a range of responses. One of the most friendly I had was from Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa. When I told them I wasn't interviewing in Monterey, but that it was a bit of a break between interviews for us, they were even more enthusiastic, and encouraged us to relax, to visit the aquarium, down the road, and the local shops and restaurants, and to enjoy our stay.

We arrived exhausted, after a long interview in the San Francisco area, and then the afternoon drive to Monterey. After the long road trip, so far, our car is filled to the brim: The back is packed solid with our luggage, camping gear, etc, the ceiling hung with collected leaves and flowers, the floor paved with our rock-collections, the seats hung with drying clothes from beach-excursions, and the seats and every nook and cranny littered with the remnants of our dinner-on-the-road, various snacks, vehicle-entertainments, and other bits that came unpacked. We drove up to the hotel, passed the valet parking, and assumed there must be some better-for-us way of checking in. Nope! Valet was the only way. So we parked the car around the corner, feeling rather unfit for such obviously high-class accommodations, pulled out the bags we'd need for our time in Monterey, tidied up what we could of the mess, and then the kids and I followed Markus on foot, as he drove up to the Hotel Entrance. I checked us in as our car was swarmed by valets and attendants of various descriptions, and our luggage whisked up to our room. The woman at the front desk said "I am very pleased to assist you", and we wandered a little bewildered up to our room.

There was a vanity outside the spacious bathroom, there were 3 telephones (desk, bed, and toilet?!) the beds were clad in down, the balcony doors opened to a cool night view of Monterey Bay, kelp beds, and sealions grunting their evening conversations. Email was free. (Rhiannon emailed her friends.)

Before we'd even finished looking around our luggage arrived, and then a basket of fruit, water, cookies, milk in wine-glasses for the kids, and a totally unexpected card from the manager, saying he was delighted to host us.

Needless to say, we fell into a swoon of happy exhaustion, sitting on the balcony enjoying our gifts, with the distinct feeling that there had been some mistake. We are not the Queen. But we lived it anyway, and joyously spent two nights in this fabulous hotel.

The kids have 2 beloved animals and a baby with them, so we have a little housekeeping-test going: If we leave them in the room when housekeeping comes to make the beds, how will they be treated? They've never been treated badly, although once Fwog (above) appeared to have had a rather vigorous massage. But the Monterey Hotel housekeeping passed our test, too:

Meme seemed to be enjoying her view of the water.  :--)

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Between two nights of sealion choruses grunting us to sleep, we went to the aquarium. The main exhibit (the window into Monterey Bay was closed, and although most of the other exhibits were great, we all agreed that Vancouver Aquarium is just as great, though a little different, and sad that the mammals have such small enclosures. It was nice to watch the wild otters, seals, sealions and humans from the deck of the aquarium Monterey.

On our way!

The first section we explored was the "cannery". The aquarium is on Cannery Row, and it was nice to have the opportunity to learn about not only the history, but also the practical workings and ecological considerations of fisheries.

The aquarium has a beautiful seahorse exhibit.

(Including these miniscule baby seahorses, pictured here much larger than life!)

The albatross talk (with friendly captive assistant) was quite interesting.

Predatory hand-barnacles!

Wild sea otter having a crab for lunch.

A lot of lovely birds in a pretty small enclosure. Spoonbills, flamingos, ibis, herons, etc.

Yes I know it looks like I'm grabbing him, and Rhiannon chided me for it, but I wasn't - honestly. The sociable bat rays are really rather unbelievable. They swim right out of the water to look us in the eyes, and seem really to enjoy being petted. As I reached out to stroke this passerby, it lifted its fin right up into my hand and swooshed through like, well... like a fish.

One of the penguins was also rather sociable. Most of its family and compatriots sat up on the rock having meetings; this one kept coming back for visits with the gawking humans.

Bridges

We thought Seattle was the City of Bridges. Well it rather is. Seems to be a futuristic snarl of multi-level twisting ribbonous concrete, buildings poking up here and there as if they're fighting the freeways for space.

Well if Seattle is the city of Bridges, then the San Francisco Bay is the land of driving over water. Never mind the Golden Gate. It's nice, OK. But today I had a MAMA interview in Oakland, before we drove south, which necessitated traveling on 2 other bridges: the San Rafael and the San Mateo. Wow. We spent a lot of time driving over water. Miles and miles of driving over water.

Toward Richmond-San Rafael bridge.

IN Richmond-San Rafael bridge.

On the road that might as well be a bridge of it's own, on the way to the San Mateo Bridge. Yes that's right: you can't SEE the other side!

Finally reaching the San Mateo Bridge, which is nothing compared to the miles of water-skimming road we'd just traveled.

San Francisco!!

Drove into San Francisco on a foggy morning, just to be sure we had the full experience!!

So many people seem to bring up the Golden Gate Bridge in conversation. At least now we can nod knowingly instead of blankly!

First stop: Maritime Museum. The main gallery upstairs was under renovation, though.

As usual, Markus found something to study to help him make boat-building decisions.

Then we went out to the real boats, where we put the kids to work.

Hard work, but futile work, too.

...meanwhile back at the museum, some rather diminutive plastic sailors worked in perfect unison at their own job...

Then we walked down Haight Street,

filled Mama's shopping quota at Love of Ganesha,

had a snack at a lovely little cafe that was full of interesting books, and packed it in for the day.

Day 2: back to the Haight: visited some mural-creatures,

... ... ...

and eventually found ourselves in Golden Gate Park, having an up-close communion with our first palm tree.

Markus seems to find oaks wherever we go!

We hung around on Hippie Hill for a while, visited the playground, and eventually wound our way back out of the park, again.

We had lunch in the dunes while watching surfers and sand-movers coaxing the dunes off the Great Highway and back onto the beach. What makes the highway Great in San Francisco? We weren't sure. But obviously it must be.

So we took it back to Mill Valley again.

The Mill Valley Inn

I wanted to stay in Mill Valley because this is where my mother lived, as a child. Thankfully, we were offered accommodation by the Mill Valley Inn, and glad to be there. Mill Valley has changed quite a bit since the mid-to-late 50's, when my mother lived there. It's an upscale town, now, and the Mill Valley Inn pretty much lives up to that standard.

It's a concrete building that spirals up around what could be a courtyard, but is instead the inn's parking garage. This is maybe not the most elegant view upon exiting a room, but open and interesting, and preferable to the small hallways of most hotels we've seen. The room we have is small, but beautifully decorated with old and/or distressed wooden furniture, amazingly high ceilings, and with gorgeous French doors opening to the town. MVI is the first place we've visited that does not have a Bible in the room. We like this.

Breakfast is all self-serve, but definitely better than the 3-star accommodations we've stayed at, with more and varied fruit options, average sweet/white breads, reasonably healthy cereals, and make-your-own waffles. Self-serve coffee and tea (a nice assortment!) are available, but so are various espresso and steamed-milk beverages, from the kitchen. An open wine-and-cheese reception is held every afternoon in the breakfast room, and I assume that the doors are opened to the patio in better weather (it's raining while we're there).

Although the inn as a whole is clean and quite comfortable, when we asked for a mattress or cot for the children, who were sleeping on the floor, we were given a very old, stained mattress with a sheet over it. This is by far not the worst thing we've seen in hotels on this trip, but not really up to the standard the Mill Valley Inn has set for itself. I am going to assume it was just a glitch.

On the whole, MVI is a lovely, calm, quiet place to stay, close enough to San Francisco without needing to be in the urban madness, and a good place to relax, if you can afford it. It's a great place for an afternoon bit of Asterix-reading: