The house was cold and dark when we awoke this morning. The power still wasn't on and I needed my coffee fix. I used my Starbucks app to make a mobile order but the closest Starbucks that was open was nine miles away in Seaside. I went anyway. It provided some needed information. The whole area of Pacific Grove and Monterey was without power. No stoplights were functioning. I could see the remnants of many trees that fell and it appeared that emergency crews had been working all night to clear the roads. It was a bit of a harrowing nine miles. When I got to Seaside I found a completely overwhelmed Starbucks trying to meet the coffee addiction needs of Monterey and Pacific Grove. I had to park a block away and walk through the rain to get coffee for Gayle and I . I asked myself if coffee was really worth all this trouble. I decided it definitely was. It took me over an hour to get back.
When I got back Gayle said she had already packed. We decided we should hurry and get the hell out of Dodge. Gayle had read that Carmel was especially hard hit. We are driving in the opposite direction to Montara and we didn't know if we would hit flooded streets or perhaps need to reroute and go up to San Francisco and then down to Montara. Our cellular data was not working for either of us, probably because the whole urban population around us was devoid of wifi and relying on their cellular data. We packed up the car in the rain and headed out with little to no knowledge of the weather and what route we would take.
Out on the road, Gayle got enough bars to map us up Highway 1. It appeared open and fine....but of course, we weren't sure. When we were coming into Santa Cruz we got alerts on our phones that we were in a Flood Watch area and needed to precede with caution. We were shaky and unsure of ourselves.... afraid that trees were going to fall on us or mud was going to slide down the hill and overtake us.
When we got out of Santa Cruz County the rain stopped. We could see a sliver of blue sky in the distance. There was no wind. We realized we were out of the woods and that we would probably arrive at our AirBnB four hours before check in time. So we slowed our roll. If there was a vista point or a lighthouse on the side of the road we stopped.
We pulled into Montara little after noon. We stopped at Gherkins Sandwich Shop and found a table. We ordered a BLT to share. Half of the sandwich was still as large as our heads.
Gayle sent an email to the owner of the AirBnB and explained that we had lost power at our last place and we were tired and hoping that we could check in a bit early. She responded quickly thanking Gayle for "comprehending" that it wasn't possible for us to check in early. So we headed out in search of adventure. A short way to the North is an old WWII bunker that was used as an observation station.
When we neared the Devil Slide bunker we pulled off the road and took a closer look. It is covered with graffiti, inside and out.
We sat on the guard rail and stared out to sea hoping to spot the spout of a whale but saw none. It was so wonderful to see blue sky again.
We still had several hours to kill. So we pulled off at the next beach parking lot and spotted surfers and horses sharing the same beach.
We watched with great interest as a big and tall man spent a good half hour trying to get his wet suit on. We still had an hour or more to kill so we poked our head through several different gift shops and then stopped for tea and a game of checkers.
By then we knew we could head back and get into our AirBnB. Gayle entered at exactly 4 p.m. to find the cleaning lady still here. She helped us bring in our bags and took off. The place is amazing and worth the wait. It has a couple seating areas that look down on the waves crashing against the rocks.
We plan to just sit here tomorrow and be mesmerized by the beauty of this place.
We cleaned up a bit, rested and then took off for San Francisco. I had gotten tickets to see Get Mortified at the DNA Lounge. It is a live storytelling event, highly curated, in which people read from their Junior High diaries.
We laughed until we felt like we had done laughing yoga. It was hilarious.
We got back home before 10 p.m., sat by the fire and felt lucky to be alive and to be here.
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