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| It gets bigger than this. WAY bigger. |
The Glen Oaks diner serves up an 8oz steak, poached eggs and hash browns for breakfast with as much coffee as you can drink. Amanda's breakfast looks good too. The Mexican looking staff confirm that English is still widely spoken in Monterey County and shortly after breakfast we visit the Glen Oaks reception greeted by a Spanish only speaking cleaner, "Hola!". The receptionist confirms in English that we must be out by 11.00 hours tomorrow.
The diner staff recommended we visit the Julia Pfeiffer State Park and we're glad we did. The views of the vivid turquoise Pacific ocean frothing onto the sand and crashing against the pine tree infested rocks is quite something. The fresh waterfall cascades straight into the ocean: it looks like a film set.
We drive next to the purple sand beach three miles north of Glen Oaks. It is about a mile and a quarter's hike from the car park to the beach. The walk takes us through woods and sand tracks. The dry sand is yellow but if you look closely you can just about see a purplish dusting of sand catching the sunlight. The tide is in and perhaps the sand is more purple when it's wet. Amanda and I are examined by a Western Gull as we eat nuts and fruit for lunch. The breakfast was too big to fit another meal in before dinner. The gull looks hopeful for scraps but three folk on horse back surprise it and it loses interest. We trudge back to the car.
We have given up hoping for good bread and some cheese at the largely Spanish speaking General Store. Instead we buy pop and ice cream saving ourselves for tonight's dinner out. Andrew, who speaks English, at the Post Office promises us that Steve will get his book the next day.
Still no news about my niece Kate and her new born.
I am writing in the airport so have bags of time. It is 15.15 SF time and 23.15 BST.
Our last meal at Glen Oaks: the Nepenthe restaurant looks posh online so I wear a jacket. Amanda looks very smart too. We needn't have bothered. Some folk are dressed casually for dinner but about 75% are dressed in beach wear. We are eating at 18.00, the earliest all this holiday so that we can light the fire pit for the last time at our woodland apartment.
Lee, our waiter, also makes his own wine and suggests a local Gary's vineyard wine. The Pinot Noir is delicious and I order a bottle, some for now and some for Amanda later who is driving back.
The party of eight Americans at the next table are loud but articulate. At first I think they are holding a business meeting, each is referring to their own bundle of A4 paper and taking it in turns to present a topic to the group. They are in their mid 20s and after each person speaks the group summarises what has been said and asks if anyone has anything to add. The full horror of this scene begins to unfold when Amanda and I realise this is how they socialise and hold a conversation at the dinner table. There is no spontaneity, no wit and no sparkle. It is as if the topics of conversation have been ordered in advance and any potential humour removed. The conversation is conducted with the intensity of a difficult business meeting. Sentences begin with: ' statistics show that......'; 'according to recent analysis.....'; 'do the math and see what you get', and other clunky openers. The oddest thing is none of them actually seems to say anything interesting but all nod enthusiastically at each others verbal description of life's pie charts and bar graphs.
Lee, our waiter, says they're from Silicon Valley and pretty much everyone is like that there. He describes them as weirdos. Spot on I think; they could even be robots.
Our last fire pit is huge because we burn every scrap of paper, maps, guides we collected in the past three weeks. The flames leap 5' into the night air and Amanda melts more marshmallows for her s'mores, which I don't have and between us we finish up the Pinot Noir. No skunks tonight. Bed at 22.00.
Amanda:
We start off on a trail to see a coastal waterfall after an omelette breakfast of epic proportions. The sea is an almost unbelievable turquoise and the coastline is reminiscent of Cornwall. Except much, much bigger - an uber-Cornwall. We walk as far as we can along the coastal path and then return to the car where I drive Paul so he can see the coastline properly. We head off to the next park to see purple sand and hopefully eat our yellow cherries on the beach. The path is supposedly only a mile but it seems quite a bit longer. We rest on a washed up tree and eat our cherries, beadily observed by a large gull. We're saving the pits for the fire tonight as they apparently make good fuel.
After another dinner of essentially pretzels and plastic cheese I have rebelled and say I want to go out to dinner tonight. We were simply going for the closest place but Paul decides Nepenthe would be a nice last night treat. It looks fabulous so we dash off early as you can't make reservations. We're lucky to be seated promptly and watch the occupants of the table nexgt to ours agog: it's difficult at first to work it out but it seems to be one girl's birthday. Each person must make a speech of eulogy about her and present her with a gift and explanation of its choice. She then responds. I tell Paul I want this arranged for my birthday as it's shamlessly flattering - one says she is "ethereal yet vibrant"; there's no sense that they realise how funny they are. And that's aside from them being dressed in shorts and plastic sandals in one of the area's top restaurants. Paul and the waiter exchange verbal eyerolls before I drive us back - well, beyond back as we overshoot the turning by a couple of miles and have to do a U-y.
Paul builds the ultimate fire and I catch him expertly lobbing unused matches in when he thinks I'm not looking. I suspect it was visible from space. We finish the remains of the wine Paul had with dinner and I make final s'mores. I'll be taking the Grahams crackers home and we agree to see if s'mores translate to a Suffolk setting.
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