San Jose to Monterey to Carmel

We spent Monday traveling under the warm Californian sun from North Star to Los Altos through the mountains, with several stops including Fry's Electronics , and In and Out Burger We arrived in time for a visit with Louise before we made our way out to rent a car (see above photo) at the San Jose Airport early the next morning.

The treasure wanted nothing but the best of course! So I was going to have to make due with an Audi A6 (AKA Life support system for Rita)!!

This A6 bad girl came with all the trimmings, and I mean everything. You name anything and this sucker had one, or two, or even three in some cases, including a personal built in navigator and back up camera (Jane you will never have to turn your head again) just for starters. As someone pointed out you need a "computer science" degree to take advantage of all the features in this vehicle. It was not till I discovered the manual shift override before things got real interesting, well the rest is history! We quickly made friends with "Rita" the personal Hertz navigator, and off we went down the highway towards Monterey and back to day three of our honeymoon!
Ann insisted we went to the Monterey Aquarium and as always, Ann was right the Jellies are not to be missed if you're in Monterey. The Aquarium was endless complete with the best views Monterey has to offer, even for us spoiled west coasters.

The above photo is a tank with huge Jellies, lite with blue lights. You could easily spend days just watching this one tank. They also had a new shore birds exhibit which was equally as interesting and worth a day on its own.

Monterey must be the volunteer capital of the world. I am convinced everyone over that "age" volunteers at the Aquarium. Every time Judith asked me a question someone with a reference book was standing within earshot to offer some information.
The above photo is Judith being upset by "Rita" and insisting she gets to decide the route to Carmel and wouldn't get in the car until "Rita" was turned off. I guess the term riding shotgun will have to be redefined to keep Judith and "Rita" from fighting the whole trip.

After a while the girls came to an understanding and we headed back out on the road to Pebble Beach in honour of the Fletcher clan.

I was not at all surprised when we pulled up to the "Lodge" and the poperatsy ran up to the car when they saw Judith getting out. "Rita" of course was not impressed with all the attention Judith was getting so I had to keep the peace until things settled down.

Judith was in her element working the crowd, smiling, and laughing and telling tall tales of when she shot 20 under par at the island open last summer. Of course the poperatsy wanted to know what Jane is doing since she left the tour last year and kept asking when the next generation of Fletcher girls will hit the links driving for show, and putting for the dough!

After Judith signed autographs and meet with her people we carried on to Carmel for dinner at Pepe's with the beautiful people. The waitress recognized Judith right away, so we ended up in the VIP area drinking Limoncello and telling stories about skiing around the world with our Portland friends after eating our way around southern Italy.

One of the dinner guests was contemplating giving up skiing (he is 80) this year. Of course we all talked him out of this crazy idea, and Judith promised to ski a run with him, which of course made his day.