Waiting for work

... spending the night at Marina CA

No alarm.

BB had leftovers from last night, I decided the In-n-Out burger had sat out too long so I went down for breakfast. Juice, yogurt or pastries. I took the juice and yogurt.

We hung around the motel until almost noon. We had talked about walking to the state beach, but then decided we would continue on from there so we drove.

No place to park inside the park gate, but there is also a few street parking spots just outside the gate and we got one of those. We had looked online and found a path in the park and wanted to walk that one. On an aerial shot, the path looked flat. Nope, it was up and down the sand dunes on the drifting sand. BB didn't have shoes for that kind of walking and doesn't like it even if she did. So we watched the waves from the parking lot for a while before leaving.

That was Marina State Park, about .2 miles from our hotel.

Next stop was the Red House Cafe in Pacific Grove. We have eaten here before. Last time there was a line. This time we walked right in, to order. Everything in CA is to-go right now. It is Sunday and we had to order off the brunch menu. BB had some kind of egg bake and I had eggs benedict. Maybe took about 10 minutes to get our food.

When we were here last time there was a candy store in a 1800's house across the street. It is gone. I did remember enough of this area to find our way to the beach.

We park near the John Denver memorial. These parking lots are dirt and no guard rail. BB though I was going to drive over the edge, and the next two people that parked next to us parked so much further back that other cars were having issues getting behind them. Later when we came back to our car, we were walking on flat ground in front of the car next to us. They could have pulled in a lot further.

First we eat our to-go breakfast as we watch the waves. Then we go for a short walk, but it is either on the shoulder of the road or in the sand dunes. Coming back to our car we walk past the John Denver memorial rock.

We drive less than a mile and stop again to watch the waves. Here we didn't walk at all other than the few feet to see the waves better. There is a 'high surf warning' in effect, what ever that means.

By now we remember that there is a better hiking spot further up the road. Beach Trail is how it is listed or Asilomar State Beach. I didn't realize it at the time, but we were looking at the shore where we were yesterday on the 17 mile drive.

We walked here for a while. Not sure how long we were at each place, but we left the motel before 11 AM and didn't get back until after 3 PM and we were never more than 15 miles from our hotel.

By now BB is done walking so we head back, but decide to stop at the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary first. Another place we have been. I just looked, we were here last time in Dec 2019. It was the peak butterfly time so we saw some, but we heard that the numbers were way down.

Today was past peak and we didn't see any. Then I looked online.

https://www.kazu.org/post/winter-without-monarchs-pacific-grove-butterfly-town-usa#stream/0

There haven't been ANY this year. One of the experts has gone to 25 different monarch sites this year and seen 15 monarchs total. When they 1st started counting in 1997, there were 45,000 just at this one.

We headed to the motel.

And we get to drive down the street between to groups yelling at each other. One side of the street were people with Trump flags and other signs, other the other side were people with the Mexican flag and other signs.

BB did a load of laundry and then it was almost sunset.

This time we walked to the beach, good thing we did as anyone arriving now was not leaving. BB didn't grab a heavy jacket and got cold even when we were walking. We sat on the beach about a half hour watching the waves and the sunset. Not the beautiful colors I was expecting. And then the sun mostly went behind the clouds before it set. And my camera :( I thought I had taken pictures of BB and I, but sometimes when I click the button, it just focuses and doesn't take a picture. Not sure how to change that, I have missed a lot of pictures because the camera is not consistent. Sometimes it takes a picture when I click, other times it focuses when I click.

Not sure the plan for tomorrow yet. We are close enough that we can call from here to see if there is work and still get there before the paperwork is ready.