Blogs from Monterey, California, United States, North America - page 9

Monterey Bay To car enthusiasts, Monterey Bay is one of the special places in Northern California. In addition to mesmerizing coast line roads, blue ocean, temperate climate, and mouth watering seafood, this place hosts many high speed and historic racing events. Laguna Seca circuit is located just a few miles west of Monterey Bay’s sand dunes off Highway 1. Due to the rolling hills and valleys that make up the region’s landscape, Laguna Seca circuit features the highly respected and challenging high speed turns, switchbacks, and hairpins. The elevation changes on the turns give the continuous 3D racing experience that is rather unique to this circuit. The famous corkscrew turn pushes not only the limit of the drivers but also to the engineering teams that build and tune the chassis, suspension, and brake. Even Avatar 3D ... read more

Chillin on the highway from San Jose to Monterey....actually its from San Francisco to L.A but the former sounded much better, there's something about rhyming words that makes me internally satisfied! hmmm By the time we left San Fran it was nearing late afternoon so the group decided that if we felt safe enough we'd stop overnight in San Jose, a little over an hour and a half from the city. We settled into our cosy room, ate some not so delicous dinner and got some well needed rest for a day of adventure. We were heading for Santa Cruz, and unfortunately the weather didn't match a. our excitement to be on the road and b. the beautiful town of santa cruz. A gorgeous little seaside town with cute little shops, a good vibe and the ... read more

This day began with a short drive to Pacific Grove for breakfast. We then drove to Monterey and went to the most incredible aquarium. Without a doubt the best aquarium I've ever been in and every one I've been in since has been incomparable. There was a huge amount of sea creatures including,starfish,seahorses,sharks,jellyfish,penguins,stingrays and loads loads more. The aquarium is so big they allow you to have your hand stamped so you can go out and come back later the same day. We took a lunch break and found ourselves once again in a Ghiradelli's chocolate shop,once again eating ice-cream sundaes. We then returned to look at the rest of the aquarium which was very well laid out and a must-see in Monterey. We then headed back to our hotel in Carmel after stopping at a ... read more

On leaving Yosemite National Park very late, we stayed the night in Madera in suburban California. All of a sudden the world was a busier place again. Before heading back into San Francisco, we stopped for a couple of nights in quaint Monterey and checked out pretty Carmel-on-Sea, where Clint Eastwood used to be mayor. Seeing the Pacific again meant that it was almost time to go home and appropriately, the only clouds we'd seen in 4 weeks appeared on our last day in Monterey. Driving in through the greater San Francisco Bay area gave us a proper idea of just how big a city San Fran really is and it took us a long time to reach the rental depot to drop off our trusty Chevy Big Boy. Maybe we were subconsciously just driving slower, ... read more

For a quick Fourth of July weekend getaway, Shea and I decided to skip town for a visit up to Monterey. After a long day in the office, I picked up our rental car at 4pm and by 5:30 we were on the road along with the thousands of others escaping for a three day weekend. We didn't arrive into Monterey until about 11:30 and immediately checked into the Comfort Inn. Initially, we had some confusion finding our hotel as there were 2 Comfort Inn's on the same street and within close proximity to each other. Eventually we found the correct one, checked in, dropped off our bags, and went out to find an open place for a late dinner. After settling on Denny's, we went straight back to the hotel to call it a night. ... read more