Monterey

Where was this? New Mexico maybe?:

Kaia: "Aww, we missed the Continental Divide!"
Me: "We could get a continental breakfast."
Kaia: "True!"
Me: "We could divide it!!"
Kaia: "..."

I finally read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck a week or two after stopping in Monterey (thanks for the copy, Asha). It was really about time. I realised I'd been to Monterey four times so far - which is plenty for someone from Huddersfield - and wandered down Monterey's famous Cannery Row four times too. I found the Cannery Row of Steinbeck's books to be vibrant and engrossing, and the Cannery Row of real life to be quite nice and have a really great sock shop. Strange that I like them both but they have nothing to do with each other whatsoever. (Seriously, that could be the nicest sock shop I have ever been in. I got several pairs of just lovely socks). I wonder if Cannery Row would have stayed the same, would have stayed 'authentic', if Steinbeck had never written about it. It wouldn't have become famous and got so much tourist attention, and it wouldn't have banners up every ten feet with quotes from the novel written on them. Call that the literary observer effect. As long as it brings me socks...


We just stayed in Monterey a couple of days, really because it was on the coast on our route between San Luis Opispo and San Francisco. We didn't go the the Monterey Bay Aquarium this time (I love the aquarium. Oh the cute sea otters! Oh the freaky jellyfish!) but we wandered around and ate fish and chips, and found a beach to sit on just as the sun was setting.