Another friend, Pebble effin' beach, and some mild food porn

Today we begin with a whole new thing: nature.

We spent the day near Monterey, about 2 hours southwest of our base at the SF airport, and on the water.

As we cruised around the community at Pebble Beach (the circular road is known as 17-mile Drive, to give you an idea of how long the golf course laden coast line is), we pulled into a scenic pulloff to see  --

He was two feet from some people, not 50 feet from the road, and the people had a German Shepherd, who was straining to...to...well, what happens when a German Shepherd meats a seal?

Michael and I got pretty close -- we didn't know it was law to stay 50 feet away -- I even took a selfie that is me and rocks but is supposed to be me and him...

it was awesome.

But here's the down side: the people there before us tried to pet it and it moved away (obviously).  This freaked out another bystander, who yelled at them "you aren't supposed to be trying to touch it, just leave it alone!  It was laying here sleeping, chilling, and you are bothering it, and with a dog that keeps barking at it! just leave it the fuck alone!"  Michael thanked him for saying something.

But to get so close was so awesome.

My prime goal in going down to the area was to see Pebble Beach Golf Links.  After last month's trip to St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf, going to Pebble was a good bookend as it is the most iconic golf course in the States.    It was an overcast day -- the guy in the pro shop said this was summer in the area, or, as he quoted Mark Twain about San Francisco, "The coldest winter I ever spent was one summer in San Francisco."

But we got to walk right up to the 18th green -- which sits right on the water (as you can see -- here's the link) -- and the staff person there took this picture --

That's the familiar tree on the left side, and the pin is just off the left of the screen. And the tee is back in the right center.  The last hole wraps around that water!  It's as picturesque -- more! -- in person than on TV.

Then up the coast to Pacific Grove and Cannery Row.

We had lunch there.  Again today it was ice cream.  I won't insert the pic here. :)

But before we did all that, we stopped on the way at Stanford University.

Wow.

Just wow.

The acreage is immense.  The buildings are amazing -- almost all in the same stucco with red clay tile roofs.  Here's a picture of their iconic (my word for the day) Hoover Tower.

Those of you who work at universities: you wouldn't have believed all the students milling about on a Sunday at noon!  I went into Starbucks and there must have been 30 on laptops sitting around!  Sunday, at noon!  It's a good-sized campus -- 16,000 -- but still...it didn't remind me of noon on any PASSHE campus I'd ever been on.  And I've been on a lot of them.

Impressive.

Then back to the airport and we had Chinese about a mile from the hotel.  We were the only Caucasians in the place.  The food was excellent.  I've captioned it in the pictures on the link.

And with that, our time in SF comes to an end, rather sadly.  We love the hotel, we love the area, and there's much to see and do.  But tomorrow we go west...and more rustic...and more nature.  No seals, but maybe a bear or two?  At least a horse.

But that's another day.

Today's funny:  somehow a view of some cows, led to a discussion of sheep.  and a series of jokes, including one from Barb that she claimed "I didn't tell, I just repeated."  Michael kept saying "that's my wife telling that joke!"

 Which led to Karen offering this euphemism for something seen in a Edinburgh men's "loo" -- "vacationing vagina."  Michael pointed out the alliteration; the renaming seems to have soothed Karen's sensibilities. :)