Day 21, more

We made it to Monterey just in time to feed starving children. Me, I wasn’t too hungry, because I drove and *ahem* ate all my jelly beans. Oops. All of the Fisherman’s Wharf restaurants have awesome clam chowder, but we always eat at Old Fisherman’s Grotto when we’re in Monterey, so we headed there. It’s not exactly a family-friendly restaurant, and on the kids’ menu it specifically states that if your child is crying or causing a disturbance, you need to take the child outside or you’ll be asked to leave. Yikes! There were more than a few raised eyebrows when the eight of us filed in and sat down. Thankfully, the kids did great. We even got compliments on how well-behaved they were. We try hard to make sure our family, and our children, aren’t “that bunch of kids” that cause grumbling, dirty looks, and muttered comments, so to hear that someone is impressed by the kids’ behavior is always gratifying.

(Especially when they were non-stop blurs of motion the entire time we were at Lake Berryessa and Jelly Belly.)

We started to look at souvenirs along the wharf, and while the older kids and I were browsing, Jeff took the younger kids to look at the water. While looking over the railing, Levi turned his head just right, and the wind blew his hat in. Yep, his rainbow-colored, spinning-propeller, just-purchased Jelly Belly hat. Levi was immediately hysterical, and not only was he crying non-stop, Aspen started to cry too. Jeff talked to a couple of people to try & find out how he could get down to the water, and the third person he talked to was a woman just a few feet away in the office of a whale-watching boat. Since the boat was tied up right there, she went down onboard the boat and pulled out a long stick with a hook on the end. It took a few tries, because the boat was moving a few feet back and forth with the waves, but she was able to snag the hat with her hook and return it to a very grateful little boy. Pheee-ew! Poor guy had a tear-stained face for the rest of the night, but he was sooooo happy to have his hat back. He wanted to wear it back to the car, but I vetoed that because it was sopping wet, and the wind was chilly.

At that point, we realized we’d be setting up camp in the dark, so we headed towards Carmel to the Saddle Mountain RV Resort. The GPS showed that we’d arrived there about half a mile before we actually had, so we drove clueless for a few minutes before finding it tucked onto a hillside at the end of a one-land road. Seriously, tucked into a hillside. The driveway felt like it was at a 40-degree angle, and the dirt road to get to the tent sites was a short series of switchbacks with flat spots carved out on the sides for tents. I would have never found this place on my own in a million years, but despite the hills and the difficulty in driving the van up here, it’s a great park. I’d love to come back here and stay for a week!

Total miles today: 172