Paicines, CA - Into Monterey

‘Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.’

                                                                      John Steinbeck in Cannery Row

Back in 2005, while I was still working for Wells Fargo, I was sent to a conference in Las Vegas. Now, don’t get jealous, Wells watches its expenses pretty well and we were in Vegas in June, when the rates were lower. And June is not exactly the time you want to travel to Vegas but it is better than August. But, Gary and I decided to make it a vacation trip also so we paid for him and paid for extra for me to fly to San Jose, CA. We stopped in to see my Aunt Betty and Uncle Chuck, drove over to the coast down rte 1, though Big Sur country, drove right through Los Angeles in rush hour traffic at an absolute standstill, drove on down to San Diego to see my Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Bob and then over to Las Vegas. Fun trip but, we drove right by the Monterey Aquarium, reasoning that we had just seen the Boston Aquarium 3 times in 3 years with visitors and were aquariumed out.

Missed the Monterey Aquarium? Considered one of the world’s top 10? Yep, we sure did. And today is our chance to remedy that oversight. We got up early to squeeze in a Monterey breakfast before the 10:00 opening time. We parked a few blocks away, snagged a free spot, walked along a marvelous walking, biking, blading, running path and into the aquarium. Guess what - 4, count them - 4 buses were parked out front and there were loads of tiny voices. Although, sometimes they were not so tiny. But they were having a great time and racing from exhibit to exhibit, oohing an aahing while filling in the study guide that their teachers had given them.

A marvelous aquarium, with a huge ocean tank at one end filled with fish I have never seen before but also some like sea turtles and sharks,

and a huge kelp forest at the other. In between were ocean otter tanks, jellies,

touch tanks with crabs, sardine circles, several movies rotating in the theater, penguins, tide pools right outside, exhibits on Monterey Bay and several films about life at the bottom of the ocean. We could have spent all day but, we got museumed out about 2:00, had a banana in their cafeteria and finally called it quits.

Outside we walked along what is called Cannery Row after the title of John Steinbeck’s book. However, what Steinbeck wrote about and and the reality today are two different things. Steinbeck wrote about the sardine canning business of the 1930’s and today this whole area is a tourist trap with restaurants, shoppes and hotels, many within a simulated tin building. The first cannery was built in 1908 to serve the rapidly growing sardine industry and America’s desire for fish.

WWI brought about a huge demand for canned fish and more and more canneries were built - out of corrugated tin. In 1915 sardine production was 75,000 cases but by 1918 it was 1,400,000. Workers were needed to work in the canneries and many immigrants were employed in this hard life. Hours were long, the canneries were cold, work was by hand, the canneries were smelly and unsafe, the housing was minimal and wages - low.

However, as quickly as the sardine canning business grew, it also collapsed when the sardines were overfished. One of Steinbeck’s good friends, Ed Ricketts, investigated where the sardines had gone: ‘They’re in cans.’ he finally concluded.

The old cannery area in Monterey fell into near ruin as the derelict factories were abandoned and the area turned into a small ghost town. Finally many of the buildings burned to the ground, leaving only their shells and memories.

However, Steinbeck published his novel, Cannery Row in 1945 and brought renewed interest to this area. People who had read his book came here to see the old canning industry. And, besides this area is smack dab on Monterey Bay, prime territory. Soon restaurants opened which brought more tourists, then hotels and shops. Added to the mix was the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the 17-mile drive through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach. Today you can sit on the bay, eating your Ghirardelli hot fudge sundae watching sailboats and kayaks ply the waters where once sardine boats unloaded their catch into the canneries.

We drove the 17-mile drive back in 2005 when we came to this area but we wanted to drive it again, so beautiful it is. We love the ocean and here was another opportunity to drive along it. Waves crashing on the rocks, seagulls flying overhead and seals barking off shore - we loved it.

This is a section called The Restless Sea where, because of the geography and winds, the waves come from different directions. In the picture below, the wave on the left comes from the left and the wave on the right comes from the right.

They meet in the middle and crash together, although, on a calm day like to day, the crash is more like a small fist bump.

No wonder it was a difficult place for ships to sail.

And, of course, there is the iconic ‘Lone Cypress’ of thousands of pictures. Here’s mine to add to the mix. The Monterey Cypress is endemic to this area and only this area. They’ve built not only a wall around the tree itself but a wall along the path to it so help preserve it and protect it from the sea. They also have put in walls to protect it from humans.

Here’s a picture looking south down the coast towards the Big Sur area.

Finally, it was time to head home after a long day.