Monterey

Today I explored Monterey on my own. I took the bus into town, and explored the old town first.


This building had a neat mural showing Monterey's history.


I walked past a rock marking the spot where the city and presidio of Monterey were founded in 1770.


I believe the presidio was where my Dad was stationed for a time.


After lunch and coffee, I walked up the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail. Just past the Cannery Row area is a harbor seal sanctuary. The beaches are closed to people during April and May for pupping season.


Most of the seals were sleeping, but I caught this pup and white seal watching me:


While watching the seals, two things struck me as funny. First, whenever a large wave made it up to where some of the seals were sleeping, the seals that got wet always seemed to lift their tails. Second, watching seals move on land is funny. This video has a little of both, but I have to watch it multiple times because I always get distracted by the seal getting nailed by the wave.


Eventually, I moved on down the coast.


Further along the trail, these purple flowers started appearing everywhere.


They were a nice touch to the coast line.

Eventually, I turned around and went back to town. I met Thomas and Pawel for dinner, but first we went back to the harbor seals.

This video shows a pup get annoyed by a wave and move up the beach a ways so it could sleep in peace.



It looks like it worked!


After dinner, we went out to the western side of the peninsula for sunset.