Today, I’ve seen it all. Beaches, mountains, amazing bridges and the biggest hairiest spider in the world. You can’t appreciate how big this mother was. And of course you can’t because we didn’t get a decent photo of it.  I wasn’t getting closer than 5 foot away from that! Seriously it was nearly as big as my foot. Even the hotel owner came and shut the office door so it couldn’t get in. And then we had to unload our luggage into the very close-by (second grade) hotel room. Second grade because I booked it. Of course.

Unlike the gorgeous hotel MOD had us stay in last night in Monterey. What a beautiful seaside city.  Monterey boasts California’s first theater, (we missed Jerry Seinfeld by a few days), first public building, public library, publicly funded school, printing press, and newspaper. David Packard (Hewlett-Packard) even donated a huge aquarium. The city and surrounding area have attracted artists since the late 19th century and many celebrated painters and writers have lived there. Notably John Steinbeck – ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘The Cannery’, a story relating to the world famous sardine industry at Monterey.  Cannery Row alone was worth a wander with it’s beautiful restored buildings, amazing murals, gorgeous gum tree and well kept garden areas and paths. I loved Monterey so much I bought the t-shirt!

We left Monterey at lunch time to wander along to Pebble Beach. You may be familiar with the name, it hosts three famous golf courses along it’s shores. Cypress Point Club, Monterey Peninsula Country Club and Pebble Beach Golf Links. Methinks there may be money in that area.  It was quite cool to see someone teeing off at Point Joe, right on the rocks at shore edge. Further along we found ‘The Lone Cypress’ a 250 year old tree surviving out there on it’s own on a rock.

When it couldn’t get much better we took a drive down to Carmel-by-the-Sea for a late lunch and to try and find ex-Mayor Clint Eastwood. I yelled and yelled but he didn’t come out from his hiding space, although I am pretty sure his brother walked past me with his dog. I made eye contact.

Apparently Carmel-by-the-Sea is an artistic community and at one point claimed 60 percent of the houses had been built by citizens who were “devoting their lives to work connected to the aesthetic arts.”

From there it was a short drive to see the Bixby Creek Bridge. One of the most photographed bridges in California, due to it’s aesthetic design, ‘graceful architecture and magnificent setting’. It was pretty awesome.

And that brings me back to the big hairy spider. Found in Mariposa, second grade hotel,  damn close to Yosemite. Tomorrow we get up super early – 5am – to try and catch the sunrise at Yosemite.

Not sure I’m going to sleep easy with big hairy spiders wandering around.