Before we move on to a new spot, I wanted to share a few more photos of the gorgeous Monterey area. We’ve got a bit of WiFi now, with bandwidth to burn, so here’s a bit of California eye candy. It truly is a magnificent area. Also, if anyone’s interested, I found that the video of the elephant seals in the previous post was not the one I had intended to insert. The one there now is different, so go back and look, if you are so inclined…..Without really leaving the Monterey area, we moved on to a new campground north in the Laguna Seca Recreation Area. The campground there is located near the Mazda Laguna Seca Racetrack. We had a choice of being in a site nearer the track, or one nearer the shooting range. We decided that Jezzy would appreciate racin’ more than shootin’, and picked a site accordingly. Our front row seat was run for a couple of days. Loud, but fun.The first day was motorcycle racing. These guys are nuts! The fastest time we clocked was 1:37 around the 2.3 mile track. Day 2 was two guys running practice laps in Ferraris. Equally nuts. The high point for us? On the evening of Day 2, it was bicycle night on the track! A mere $10 got us and our bikes on the tracks for as many hot laps as we could stand. What a hoot! The track has a very steep climb, followed by an equally steep corkscrew downhill – first an inside turn, then an outside turn – into a long straightaway, and a couple of hairpin turns. Yowza – we had a blast.The LSRA is bordered by the Fort Ord National Monument, so there were miles and miles of gorgeous open trails for hiking and mountain biking. From our start point, the trails were beyond my mtb capabilities, in addition to being horribly washed out by the torrential rainfall of the previous week the start was STEEP! But, Jezzy and I enjoyed strolling along – even though we occasionally went ankle-deep in mud.Nearby Salinas is the home of the National Steinbeck Museum. I decided to pedal the 15 miles there,, and it was a rewarding ride. I passed acres of farms, which still hand ponds of standing water, even though the last rainfall was four days prior. One fieldhand was hand-shoveling soil into pools of water between strawberry rows. I could see many ripe strawberries buried in mud as I cycled past. What a mess.The Steinbeck Museum itself? Not so interesting. We really didn’t find much to catch our attention for more than an hour, although we did decided to hoof it over to the cemetery to see Steinbeck’s burial site. A plain marker. Ha – joke on us. It was a four mile round trip on foot. Loved the little sign pointing to the burial plot, though….Two days was enough time camping at a racetrack, especially since there was a big sportscar race coming up for the weekend. We headed north to Sunset Beach State Park, quiet and beautiful. The Fireball is right in the middle of this photo…We rode our bikes down, and pedaled along the sand for miles each way. For the most part, we had the entire beach to ourselves. Such a pity that Jezzy was not allowed on the beach to join us.

The pine trees there have an unusual cone formation – they grow in clumps, as well as individual cones. Perhaps, they were just rainsoaked, but some of the clumps were surprisingly heavy. I believe these are Monterey Pines, but am not certain of that.This  State Park is in Watsonville, which seems to be the strawberry capital of the world. Bordering the campground were acres of strawberries – again with some severe water problems. For the days that we were there, the farmer had pumps and generators running 24/7, trying to remove the excess water from the fields.We’re now camping in San Francisco – time to move our bikes and boots into the city. This segment of our adventures will require its own separate post, but let me just say that our rain gear isn’t getting any rest. Enough!!

place